Bishan Singh Bedi, one of the great spinners of the Indian team, died on Monday at the age of 77. Left-arm spinner Bishan’s snake-like bowling was once a threat to the opposition batsmen. This was the time when the spin quartet of Bishan Bedi, Chandreshkhar, Erapalli Prasanna and Venkataraghavan used to rule world cricket. Indian team captain Bishan Bedi was the frontline spinner of this quartet.
‘Bishan Paji’, who took 266 wickets for India in 67 Tests, always stood with his players as captain. He did not fail to stand in front of the cricket administration whenever needed in the interest of the players. Perhaps this was the reason why he enjoyed a lot of respect from the players of his era. Under his leadership, the Indian team not only defeated the great teams in the country, but the team’s performance abroad also improved during this period.
India’s spin quartet including Bedi knew how to deceive the opposition batsmen with their flight. These spinners also had a different way of celebrating after taking a wicket. After retiring from cricket, Bishan also contributed in preparing his spin bowlers. Spinners like Maninder Singh and Murali Karthik honed their playing skills under the guidance of Bedi. Talking about career record, Bedi played 67 tests and 10 ODIs for India. He has 266 wickets in his name at an average of 28.71 in Test cricket and seven wickets in ODI cricket at an average of 48.57. In Test cricket, he was successful in taking five or more wickets in an innings 14 times and 10 or more wickets in a match once.
Of course, Bedi did not play much ODI cricket and his records in this format are not very impressive but one of the stingiest bowling analysis in the World Cup is recorded in the name of this ‘Lord of Spin’. In the 1975 World Cup, Bedi took 6 wickets and one wicket while keeping 8 maidens in her 10 overs against East Africa. Keeping 8 overs maiden in a 12 over spell in ODI was only due to the power of a charismatic spinner like Bedi.
It was within the power of a player like Bishan Singh Bedi to file a complaint against a team like England in the much-discussed Vaseline scandal of 1976-77. Fast bowler John Lever was included in the England team that toured India. Under this test series, he entered the field in Madras (now Chennai) wearing a lever headband. Lever had troubled the Indian batsmen a lot with his swing in the match. Amidst Lever’s success, Bedi had made a sensational allegation that Lever had applied Vaseline on his headband, which helped him swing the ball more and take wickets. England was a major power in world cricket at that time, hence Bedi’s allegations were not taken very seriously. However, later incidents of ball tampering in world cricket confirmed that the ball could be made to swing more due to ‘artificial reasons’. Later in Indian cricket, there were many players of Bedi’s level and above, but there would be very few team men like him who would stand bravely in the interest of their players.