Ayazuddin in picture taken in 2006

Hyderabad, Oct. 27: Former India captain Mohammed Azharuddin, who lost his younger son Ayazuddin to a motorbike accident here last month, plans to spend more time with elder son Ashaduddin and guide him in his budding cricket career.

Azhar, who yesterday attended the 40th-day prayers for Ayazuddin here, said he would be in Hyderabad for longer periods till Ashaduddin graduates next year. Then he would take the 21-year-old to Delhi to further his cricket career.

Azhar, Congress MP from Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh, is settled in Mumbai with his second wife, Bollywood actress Sangeeta Bijlani, but spends several months every year in Delhi to attend Parliament.

“I will help Ashaduddin fine-tune his batting style and his left-hand swing,” Azhar had told reporters at the Gymkhana ground nets, where he watched his son, a left-handed opener, practise at the weekend.

He believes that Ashaduddin needs a good coach and hopes his son would play for the Indian team in future.

Azharuddin with his elder son Ashaduddin at the 40th-day prayers for younger son Ayazuddin in Hyderabad on Wednesday. Picture by G Vijayalakshmi

Azhar was famous for his artistic batting but the 6ft2in Ashaduddin is more of a bludgeoner, known for hitting huge sixes. He plays Grade A cricket in Hyderabad for the MP Colts team and is yet to graduate to first-class cricket. In January 2009, he attended the Kolkata Knight Riders selection camp at the Eden Gardens.

Naureen, Azhar’s first wife and the mother of Ashaduddin and Ayazuddin, too has said she would be spending another month or two in Hyderabad with her elder son before returning to her home in London.

She attended yesterday’s prayers at the Santosh Nagar graveyard, where a gathering of politicians, bureaucrats, clergymen and members of the cricket fraternity joined the family in mourning.

After Azhar divorced her to marry Sangeeta, Naureen had married a businessman in Canada. She now lives with her third husband, a Muslim community leader in Britain whom she married about a year ago.

After their parents remarried, Ashaduddin and Ayazuddin lived in Hyderabad with Azhar’s parents and sister, a family friend said.

Naureen said she would keep coming to visit her son who would now feel very lonely without his younger brother. “It (her visits) will depend on Ashad’s future programmes,” she said.