A book on Bishan Singh Bedi, the most social of all Indian cricketers has reminded the billion-plus nation about a member of their legendary spin quartet of EAS Prasanna, S Venkatraghavan and BS Chandrashekhar and Bedi. For nearly three and a half decades, the Indian team’s success relied mainly on its spinners till Kapil Dev arrived on the scene with his blistering pace. That was in 1978. There was Prasanna and Venkat, both crafty off spinners and Chandra, a medium-paced leg-break googly bowler. And there was Bedi with his lovely spin and an occasional gentle loop. They were the magnificent four of the Indian cricket team, their actions had pattern, balance and rhythm.
And one needs to remember that these cricketers played when there was only prestige in the game, no cash.
The book, The Sardar of Spin, is a compilation of essays by various cricketers and cricket writers.
I was not among the writers, and I cannot argue with Roli Books because they were my first publisher – a biography of former Indian cricket skipper MS Dhoni – but I think it would be worth a while to recollect my association with this genial spin guru.
We met several times during my days with ESPN Star Sports, Bedi was always amazed to see the amount of cash the current generation Indian cricketers were earning from the BCCI, the world’s richest cricket board, and also through brand promotions. But he never allowed that to impact his outlook towards members of the Blue Billion Express, a tagline given to the Indian ODI team.
At a conference at Oxford University in London, the organisers were unable to trace him because the deadline for the evening’s show was closing in. A former Indian captain, Bedi knew how to keep his time both on and off the field. He walked in with his wife, Anju, barely five minutes before the show and surprised the organisers. I realised Bedi never liked cricketers to be paraded or made to wait on the stage before a big show.
Respect and goodwill are two things very important to Bedi, he never liked Saurav Ganguly taking off his shirt and waving it from the balcony of the historic Lord’s cricket ground. For the veteran spinner, answers to insults must come through bad or ball, even great fielding. Like he did not like dubious bowling actions.
Bedi was generous enough to launch my maiden book and handled questions with utmost ease. It seemed to me he was treating reporters as if he had known them for decades. One of them asked him if spin would eventually stay because it was all pace, pace and pace in cricket. Bedi said he was confident spin will always be an integral part of cricket – both test, ODI and even T20 – and he said a particular craze over pace bowling never bothered him.
He was bold, and straight, and as Clay Murzello writes in the book, Bedi routinely provided good fodder to pen pushers. His strong letter to Sunil Gavaskar in 1990 for the opener’s rejection of a life membership of the MCC shocked many. Wrote Bedi: “As the greatest run getter of all time in Test Cricket, you have undone all at one stroke by ridiculing the greatest institution of cricket in the world. You have proven that only the mighty can be petty.”
He always spoke from his heart. Murzello writes about Bedi’s protest of rogues who vandalised the Feroze Shah Kotla pitch before an India-Pakistan match. It was just before the 1999 Reliance World Cup. He, claims Murzello, also hated cricket administrators. He liked Jagmohan Dalmiya but hated the way Dalmiya voted for Ranbir Singh Mahendra to be the BCCI president to keep Maharashtra strongman Sharad Pawar out.
I remember the letter he wrote to the DDCA after the cricket board was mired in financial scandals. Bedi told me he did not like the Feroze Shah Kotla stadium – established in 1883 – being renamed as Arun Jaitley Stadium. He detested a statue of Jaitley being erected at the stadium complex, a cricketer’s statue would have been better for him.
That’s Bishen Singh Bedi, always bold, always beautiful, always straight. He was Django Unchained of Indian cricket, unlike India’s current crop of cricketers who always seek the board’s permission before talking about a game or a performance. A brilliant speaker, he would often narrate some wonderful stories about Indian cricket from the 60s and the 70s, ranging from Lala Amarnath’s incessant bragging about his fitness, a chopper ride in Guyana with some nervous Indian cricketers and how ML Jaisimha would turn into a chain smoker before his turn to bat.
Bedi has turned 75 this year and the book is a brilliant tribute to this wonderful cricketer and a great story-teller. Writers after writers wrote lucidly how Bedi, above all, venerated the game and felt sad if someone messed with the purity or integrity of the sport. For him, reverence towards the game will always be of utmost importance.
The Sardar Of Spin is a brilliant read.
