BISHEN SINGH BEDI

    ......the SARDAR of spin

I think there were two deadly combinations of Spin bowling attack . The first and the most deadly one is the great Bishen Singh Bedi from one end and Chandrashekhar from another end. The second great combination was Bedi from one end and Erapalli Prasanna from other end. The important thing here is, in both the combinations B.S Bedi is common factor who was undoubtedly the best left arm spinner on almost any track on any day.

B S Bedi used to superbly support to a rather expensive but clever Prasanna and more attacking Chandrashekhar. If Prasanna or Chandra used to get wickets it was mainly because batsmen had almost zero chances of scoring against the tight accurate and deceptive Bedi's bowling from the other end. This is not to underestimate skill of Chandra or Prasanna but batsmen will be willing to take chances against them as from other end Bedi would rearly give them chance to score. Bedi was excellent in his type of bowling and ,I think he was perhaps all time best left arm spinner.

In his bowling skill he was so good that person's like Rajinder Goyal, the highest wicket taker in Ranaji trophy and Padmakar Shivalkar, the main architect of more than 10 times Ranaji trophy champions of Bombay team could ever dream to be a part of Indian team as they too were left arm spinners . Bedi was so tall in his skill that both great left arm spinners never got chance to play in the test match. Bedi was as quick as present days Ravindra Jadeja,as accurate as yester year's Bapu Nadkarni and as deceptive in his flighted deliveries as his colleague Erapalli Prasanna.

Today when the news of Bedi's demise was announced all the cricketers and cricket lovers of yester years were shocked. This is the first wicket from the famous spin quartet Bedi,Venkat Rraghavan ,Chandrashekhar and Prasanna who were very difficult to play particularly on Indian pitches.The credit for at least half the wickets taken by other three spinners goes to Bedi as with them he used to bowl from the other end and denied any liberties to great batsmen like Viv Richards,Garry Sobers,Clive Loyed. If Indians were scared to face fast bowlers of west Indies , their batsmen were equally scared to face our Spinners and undoubtedly Bedi was terror for them till they could get set.

I remember those days of early seventies and all those who listened the commentry on radio about Bedi's bowling will agree that he was the main commando of Indian attack.

He was not very good in batting but with experience he learned that art and if I am not mistaken Bedi had scored half centuries on two occasions. Bedi was a very shrewd captain and our famous test match victory by scoring more than 400 runs against WI was under Bedi's captaincy.

Towards the fag end of his career Pakistan cricket board deliberately prepared the tracks not conducive for spinners when India toured Pakistan and Zaheer Abbas on flat wickets scored many runs to end Bedi's illustrious career. Bedi then lost his captaincy and eventually opted for the retirement.

People of my son's generation wonder how Bedi bowled 8 medine overs in one day cricket . If bowling 21 consecutive medan overs in the test match was a wonder by Bapu Nadkarni then bowling 8 medan overs in ODI is also a wonder by Bedi !

Bedi took 266 wickets in the test matches which was the record for an Indian when Bedi retired. Since then I have not seen any majical arm bowling effortlessly and beating batsmen time and again.

Bedi was the youngest among all those spinners but first to exit this world. It seems that this is now the beginning of the end of all great Indian Spinners 

Om shanti !


---Rajendra Phansalkar

         Oct 23,2023

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