Bishan Singh Bedi – like only he could be!

The other day a friend shared a post on WhatsApp in which former Pakistan cricket captain Intekhab Alam shared his reminiscences about Bishan Singh Bedi, the great Indian left arm spinner, who expired a few days back. The post vividly brings out the man that Bedi was – a loveable friend, a great cricketer and above all, a perfect gentleman.

Bedi was one of the architects of the position of eminence in the cricketing world that team India finds itself today in. He along with his compatriots, leg spinner B S Chandrashekhar and off spinner EAS Prasanna ( also S Venkatraghavan, who frequently substituted Prasanna) formed the great spin triumvirate, much before deadly duo of Thomson and Lillee, Imran and Sarfaraz, Waqar and Akram and the great terrible twins – Croft and Garner formed pairs. India of those days just waited for the new cherry to be soiled a bit – two three overs by the likes of Abid Ali, Ghavri, even Solkar before unleashing it’s main weapon of destruction- the triumvirate. Usually, Bedi was the first to be introduced as he was able to grip a relatively new ball better than the others . With his gently flighted deliveries, he’d put immediate brakes on the runs, choking the batter to try something adventurous and he or his other colleagues would start the demolition. No wonder, till Kapil’s arrival on the scene, who then started the trend of India producing genuine fast bowlers, the spinners ruled the roost with the three of these greats sharing almost 700 wickets amongst them. Bedi’s 266 wickets, till Kapil broke his record, which is now bettered by Kumble and Ashwin, was the best performance by any Indian for several years.

And Bedi was all about grace, patience, artistry, magic and beauty. He was a perfect gentleman but firm when it came to the rules or injustice. But he was a true friend, a person most humble in spite of his great success. He was such an obsessive friend that he named his first son Gavasinder Singh, being totally enamoured by his another great colleague, Sunil Gavaskar, though later on they fell out on some issue.

There were spinners before Bedi ( Vinu Mankad, Subhash Gupte etc) and spinners after him ( Dilip Doshi, Maninder, Ravi Shastri and currently Aksar and Jadeja), but we in our lifetimes may not witness anyone like Bedi – charming, graceful, wizard, artist and of course, a gentleman to the core!

No tribute can be big enough to cover all aspects of his life, which was well lived despite its ups and downs!

RIP the great man !