Ritesh Misra, Surat, 11 March 2023
Jim Laker had once said, “My idea of paradise is Lord’s in the sunshine, with Ray Lindwall bowling from one end and Bishan Bedi from the other.”
In International cricket, Bishan Bedi took 266 wickets in 67 Test matches. This included 14 fivers (5 wickets in an innings), and one tenner (ten wickets in a match). His best bowling effort was 7-98 versus Australia at Kolkata. His “tenner” too was versus Australia, that too at Perth. However statistics does not do justice to his extraordinary skills as a bowler and his relaxed classical style which allowed him to bowl long spells. Bedi played just 67 test matches in as many as 13 years in test cricket. Other great spinners namely B.S Chandrasekhar, Erapalli Prasanna, and S. Venkatraghavan also played along with him and shared wickets with him. Finally, that was the non-DRS era, and one could simply go on the front foot and play bat-pad defence, and no one bothered if it was bat-pad, or pad-bat, and the lbw was ruled out of the equation, and no umpire would give a batter out if he went on his front foot with bat-pad close together.
Recently, I met former Aussie batter Dav Whatmore, who later became the coach of the World Cup winning Sri Lankan team in 1996. I asked him about Bishan, and he immediately said, “Mate, Bishan would have got loads of wickets in modern cricket. He had the loop, the flight, the guile to deceive, and mate, his armer used to come in like an inswinger. He would have got loads of wickets through DRS.”
Before going on to recollect some memorable anecdotes about Bishan Sir, let me just give some factual details about his extra-ordinary first class career. Those were the days when even International players took first class cricket and Ranji Trophy (and even club cricket) very seriously. Gavaskar has been known to play the Kanga league between two test matches. Ravi Shastri’s six 6s in an over off Tilak Raj was in a match he played in a week’s gap between two test matches. Bedi Saab was no exception. For Bedi, Ranji Trophy and first class cricket has no substitute. He himself as Ranji skipper had taken Delhi to its first 2 Ranji Trophy titles and as many as 4 Ranji Finals in the first 5 years of his captaincy. Bedi was also an English first class cricket giant and only the 2nd Indian to play over 100 first class games in England. Only Farrokh Engineer has played more matches there. He played many years for Northamptonshire. Overall he had an extraordinary 1560 wickets in first class cricket.
Now for some anecdotes. Many of my cricketing friends have played U-19 and Ranji Trophy. They always recollect their Under-19 camp at Srinagar where Bedi Sir made them run and run in the bitter cold, to make them fit and strong.
Recently in a cricketing ceremony, the western stand of Ferozshah Kotla stadium was named after Bedi (and the eastern stand after Jimmy Amarnath). The then Indian skipper Virat Kohli spoke on the occasion about the legend. Virat said that currently he was extremely fit, but earlier in his U-15, U-17 and U-19 cricket days he did not understand the importance of fitness and used to run away from Bedi Sir since he made them train very hard. Virat thanked Bedi and said that because of his strict attitude, so many have succeeded in life. In response, Bedi sir said that he wished other Indian cricketers followed their captain’s example and concentrated on fitness, as he felt sad that on TV itself he could see the bulges in the stomachs of some of the Indian cricketers. Bedi also expressed sadness at the deterioration of the Ferozeshah Kotla which he had wanted to be a tourist spot like Lords but had not improved. He reminisced about a funny instance in his cricketing career. As Captain in an India-England Test match at the Kotla, he had stationed a security guard outside the dressing room so that fans could not get in. To their surprise, however, the Hon’ble President of India Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed came there as there were no proper toilet facilities in the stadium and he wanted to use the bathroom of the dressing room! Bedi said sadly that situation had not changed even now with facilities still remaining abysmal.
This outspokenness has been a hallmark of Bedi. Whether calling Murali a javelin thrower and labelling his 800 wickets as 800 run-outs, painting Harbhajan with the same brush or coming down heavily on T20 Cricket for spoiling the technique of youngsters, Bedi Sir has never held back. As per him T20 cricket was not only suffocating but the most vulgar expression of cricket and he went to the extent of calling IPL as a platform for money laundering. Indeed, the feisty Sardarji has never minced his words and once after a disappointing loss he said that “the entire Indian team should be dumped into the Pacific.” Bedi also said that chucking is a bigger evil than bribing or betting and he was also unafraid to say that umpires are at fault as they are afraid to call out the chuckers.
A relatively unknown information about Bedi is that while playing cricket for an International XI on a tour to Pakistan he came to know that a young girl in a Karachi hospital needed blood and the blood group being extremely rare (RH-O negative), the situation was very critical. Bedi, who had the same rare blood group, immediately went to the hospital to donate blood to the young girl who was saved. Pakistan TV covered the gesture and President Zia-ul-Haq saw the news on TV and gifted Bedi an expensive carpet.
Bishan Singh Bedi Sir, you are our Icon. Lots of respect and regards.