Mohamed Asif Din (born 21 September 1960) is a former British

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

er who played county cricket for

Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, and the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon an ...

from 1981 to 1995. A right-handed

batsman In cricket, batting is the act or skill of hitting the ball with a bat to score runs and prevent the loss of one's wicket. Any player who is currently batting is, since September 2021, officially referred to as a batter (historically, the ...

and occasional

legbreak Leg spin is a type of spin bowling in cricket. A leg spinner bowls right-arm with a wrist spin action. The leg spinner's normal delivery causes the ball to spin from right to left (from the bowler's perspective) when the ball bounces on the ...

bowler, he is most famous for scoring a hundred and winning the man-of-the-match award in the 1993

Natwest Trophy The Friends Provident Trophy was a one-day cricket competition in the United Kingdom. It was one of the four tournaments in which the eighteen first-class cricket, first-class counties competed each season. They were joined by teams from Scott ...

final, widely regarded as the best domestic final.

Career

Born 21 September 1960 in

Kampala Kampala (, ) is the capital and largest city of Uganda. The city proper has a population of 1,680,000 and is divided into the five political divisions of Kampala Central Division, Kawempe Division, Makindye Division, Nakawa Division, and Ruba ...

, Uganda, Din, like thousands of

Ugandan Indians There is a sizable community of people of Indian origin living in Uganda. In 2003, there were an estimated 15,000 people of Asian descent (majority of Indians and Pakistanis) living in Uganda, compared to approximately 80,000 before they were e ...

, was expelled from the country in 1972 by

Idi Amin Idi Amin Dada Oumee (, ; 16 August 2003) was a Ugandan military officer and politician who served as the third president of Uganda from 1971 to 1979. He ruled as a military dictator and is considered one of the most brutal despots in modern w ...

. His family arrived in England with £50 to their name. Asif began playing second XI for Warwickshire in the 1978 season and was introduced to the first team in 1981, making his first-class debut against

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a Historic counties of England, historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other Eng ...

. He finished his debut season with 878 runs at an

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...

of 26.60.First-class Batting and Fielding in Each Season by Asif Din
CricketArchive, Retrieved on 1 August 2009 The following season he made a maiden first-class century, against a

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, historic county in South East England, southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the Ceremonial counties of ...

bowling attack containing

Wayne Daniel Wayne Wendell Daniel (born 16 January 1956) is a former cricketer, who played as a right arm fast bowler. Daniel featured for the West Indies, Middlesex, Barbados and Western Australia in his cricketing career. Cricket career Born in St Phi ...

he scored 102 in a team total of 174. It would be five years before his second first-class century but Asif followed this with a third in Warwickshire's next three-day match a week later.Player Oracle: Asif Din
CricketArchive, Retrieved on 1 August 2009 The season was the first in which Asif passed 1,000 runs. He reached that landmark for a second, and only other, time the following season when he scored 1,425 runs at 38.51. For the rest of his career Asif had more success in

List A cricket List A cricket is a classification of the limited-overs (one-day) form of the sport of cricket, with games lasting up to eight hours. List A cricket includes One Day International (ODI) matches and various domestic competitions in which the numbe ...

(one-day cricket). In 1990 he scored 792 runs at 46.58,ListA Batting and Fielding in Each Season by Asif Din
CricketArchive, Retrieved on 1 August 2009 and was Warwickshire's leading runscorer in all three limited-overs competitions. The following season he scored 682 runs at 45.46 in one-day cricket, the tally contained two centuries including his highest List A score of 137. Asif's seventh and last one-day century was the most significant as it came in the final of the

1993 NatWest Trophy The 1993 NatWest Trophy was the 13th NatWest Trophy. It was an English limited overs county cricket tournament which was held between 22 June and 4 September 1993. The tournament was won by Warwickshire County Cricket Club who defeated Sussex Co ...

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...

batting first had set Warwickshire a target of 322 in 60 overs, Asif came to the wicket at 93/3 and shared

partnerships A partnership is an arrangement where parties, known as business partners, agree to cooperate to advance their mutual interests. The partners in a partnership may be individuals, businesses, interest-based organizations, schools, governments o ...

first with Paul Smith and then

Dermot Reeve Dermot Alexander Reeve OBE (born 2 April 1963) is an English former cricketer, best known as an unorthodox all-rounder and captain and, most recently, coach of the New Zealand side, Central Districts. Reeve played in three Tests and 29 One Day I ...

to take his side to 306 by the time of his dismissal for 104. Warwickshire went on to win the match off the final ball and Asif was adjudged the man of the match. Previously Asif had helped the county win the same trophy in

1989 File:1989 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Cypress Street Viaduct, Cypress structure collapses as a result of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, killing motorists below; The proposal document for the World Wide Web is submitted; The Exxo ...

, again sharing an important partnership in the final with Reeve (this time of 69) and this time being at the wicket as victory was assured against

; he had also been

man of the match In team sport, a player of the match or man of the match or woman of the match award is often given to the most outstanding player in a particular match. This can be a player from either team, although the player is generally chosen from the winn ...

in the semi-final this year against

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see His ...

where he top-scored with 94 not out. He was also Warwickshire's top scorer in the 1982 final against

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

, although this time appearing on the losing side. On Warwickshire's tour of Zimbabwe prior to the 1994 season Asif made his highest first-class innings, against a Mashonaland XI he scored 217, 204 of them on a single day. On the previous year's tour of South Africa Asif had taken his career best bowling figures of 5/61 against Boland. Asif was a member of the Warwickshire squad that completed the treble in 1994, he played in the final of the

Benson & Hedges Cup The Benson & Hedges Cup was a one-day cricket competition for first-class counties in England and Wales that was held from 1972 to 2002, one of cricket's longest sponsorship deals. It was the third major one-day competition established in Englan ...

and made 12 appearances in the Sunday League. In the

County Championship The County Championship (referred to as the LV= Insurance County Championship for sponsorship reasons) is the domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales and is organised by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). It bec ...

triumph he played three matches but failed to pass 50 in four innings. The season also marked Asif's benefit year from which he received £116,853.Cricket (Friday, 14 April 1995)
Independent, Retrieved on 1 August 2009 After three final one-day appearances for Warwickshire in 1995, Asif played

minor counties cricket The National Counties, known as the Minor Counties before 2020, are the cricketing counties of England and Wales that do not have first-class status. The game is administered by the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), which comes unde ...

for

Shropshire Shropshire (; alternatively Salop; abbreviated in print only as Shrops; demonym Salopian ) is a landlocked historic county in the West Midlands region of England. It is bordered by Wales to the west and the English counties of Cheshire to th ...

from 1996 until 2001, in this period he played seven List A matches for the club in the early rounds of the Natwest Trophy.

References

External links

CricketArchive Profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Din, Asif 1960 births British sportspeople of Indian descent British Asian cricketers English people of Indian descent Living people English people of Ugandan descent English cricketers Warwickshire cricketers Shropshire cricketers Ugandan people of Indian descent Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers