Former India skipper and legendary left-arm spinner Bishan Singh Bedi passed away on Monday. He was 77 years old.
Bedi played 67 Tests for India between 1967 and 1979 and picked 266 wickets. He also took seven wickets in 10 One-Day Internationals. Later he had served as selector, besides taking over as coach of a number of domestic sides, besides serving the national team in 1990-91.
Born in Amritsar, Bedi plied his trade for Delhi on the domestic circuit, and was the leading wicket-taker amongst Indians in First-Class cricket with 1,560 scalps in 370 matches.
Bedi also led Delhi to its first two Ranji Trophy titles — in 1978-79 and 1979-80. The team was also runner-up twice under him. Incidentally, the four finals came in a span of five years.
In international cricket, Bedi along with Erapalli Prasanna, BS Chandrasekhar and S. Venkataraghavan, formed a formidable quartet, who revolutionised the art of spin bowling in Indian cricket. He began his international cricket journey in 1966, representing India until 1979.
Known for his mastery over flight and spin, Bedi used subtle variations to outwit batsmen, and led India to a historic 1971 series win against England, in the absence of injured Ajit Wadekar.
An outspoken person, Bedi never minced his words even during his playing career He had inevitably courted controversies while objecting to the use of Vaseline by England bowler John Lever in 1976-7, declaring India’s second innings at Kingston in protest against intimidatory bowling by the West Indians in 1976 and, most famously as coach, when he had threatened to dump the Indian cricket team in the sea after their poor performance Down Under in 1990-91.
After the team lost their match against Australia in the Rothmans Cup, Bedi had said, “The entire teams should be dumped into the Pacific.”
There’s no bigger scam than IPL: Bedi
Bishan Singh Bedi had never approved of the Indian Premier League (IPL), and on several occasions went on to lambast the cash-rich league, also calling it a “scam”.
“I don’t want to say anything about the IPL. There’s not a bigger scam in India than the IPL. Nobody here knows where IPL’s money comes and goes. The second edition of the IPL happened in South Africa, millions of money was taken out of the country without the permission of the Finance Minister,” he had once said.
He had also criticised national selectors for picking national teams based on IPL performances.
“IPL should not be the basis of Indian selection, local T20 tournaments should be. A team has players who are paid high and ones who get less money. The lower income player doesn’t have the skills, how does he catch up? The only way he sees it is betting. I have a lot of experience in cricket, you can tell what is happening in what match. If we stay blind even while seeing, then it’s our choice,” he said.
Bedi also went on to say that IPL and ‘Spirit of cricket’ are born mismatch, after Ravichandran Ashwin famously ran out Jos Buttler at the non-striker’s’ end when the Englishman left the crease before the bowler completed his bowling.