Born on 10th October 1958 in Madras (Chennai), is former Test and ODI wicket keeper for India, Fowzieh Khalili.
Fowzieh made her international debut for India in the six match Test series against the visiting West Indies in 1976/7. Her first entry in the scorebook was stumping her opposite number, Yolande Geddes-Hall, from the bowling of Shubhangi Kulkarni. Batting at number three, she made 39 in the first innings, while in the second she opened and made 19 not out. It was that opening position that Fowzieh would make her own for the remainder of her career.
Across the eight Test matches she played, Fowzieh took 5 catches and 10 stumpings. Four of those stumpings came against Australia in her last Test, at Perth in 1977. Four times in Australia’s first innings the score book reads, “stumped Khalili bowled Kulkarni”. With those 15 dismissals she is in third place in the list of India’s wicket keepers. With the bat, Fowzieh scored 347 runs at 26.69, with a high score of 84 against the West Indies at Lucknow.
In the ODI arena, Fowzieh holds the record for the most dismissals in a World Cup, twenty in all (7 catches, 13 stumpings), at the 1981/2 World Cup in New Zealand. With the World Cup in New Zealand in 2021/22 it means that record has stood unbroken for forty years.
During that 1981/82 World Cup India won their first ever ODI, against the International XI. Three days later their second win was against England, with Fowzieh top scoring with 88, took 3 stumpings and 2 catches.
In her 13 ODIs, Fowzieh had 21 dismissals along with with 258 runs at 19.84. Those dismissals put her seventh all time for India. Still with cricket all these years later, Fowzieh lives in Canada and is the Chairperson of the Canadian Women’s team.