Cricket for me in the 1970s meant Sunil Gavaskar, Bishan Singh Bedi, Farokh Engineer and Eknath Solkar. Come to think of it, that pretty much covers almost all aspects of the great game.
In Bedi’s passing today at age 77, a big piece of that magic has been erased. On hearing the news, the image that instantly materialized in my mind was Bedi in his flannels and a colorful Patka ambling to the crease and bowling a deceptively lethal delivery. Not only did the ball spin but so did the batsman’s head as well.
What made Bedi even more remarkable was that his runup to the crease was so beguiling as if to cleverly hide the sting that he was about to deliver. Not suspecting lethality in his body language was a fatal mistake so many batsmen, 266 of them to be precise, made during his glorious Test cricket career.
It was amazing how consistently he maintained the length and trajectory of his ball. Between 1967 and 1979 when he played 67 Tests and ten one day internationals Bedi took 266 wickets at an average of 28.71. At his retirement, he was the highest wicket taker for India.
Charismatic and outspoken, Bishan Singh Bedi was a natural cricketing star like so many of his era. The idea that a bowler could claim so many wickets by spinning the ball was quite captivating for me. Bedi, of course, was part of the great Indian spin quartet, the other three being Bhagwat Chandrasekhar, Erapalli Prasanna and S. Venkataraghavan. In the era of menacing fast bowlers from the West Indies, England and Australia these four felt like some great Indian trick.
Watching videos of Bedi’s memorable wicket hauls it becomes even more extraordinary that someone could gently give the ball a flight, length and spin that would look so easy to hit out of the field and yet the batsman just could not. Bedi’s leg spinners often had angles which were bewitching.
The aesthetics of Bedi’s left-arm leg spin to a right-arm batsman are a sight to behold. To be so deadly all the while appearing to be so deceptively harmless was a fantastic talent that Bedi possessed.
Maiden overs, meaning bowling six balls without giving away a single run, was also one of Bedi’s particular skills. As opposed to a fast bowler, who uses speed and swing as his tool, a spinner depends so much on the unpredictability of the way the ball would gently turn either away from or into the batsman.
So much of what Bedi did was through his fingers and wrist without changing the overall body action.
As I said in my Facebook post “Bishan Singh Bedi beguiled spectators and befuddled batsmen.”
Here is to him.