Bishan Bedi dies at the age of 77

Bedi was ailing for the last two years and had undergone multiple surgeries including one on the knee about a month ago. He is survived by his wife Anju, their daughter Neha and son Angad, and his son Gavasinder and daughter Gillinder from his earlier marriage to Glenith Miles.

One of the game’s greatest left-arm spinners, Bedi represented India in 67 Tests and ten ODIs from 1967 to 1979. He was India’s highest wicket-taker in Tests, with 266 at an average of 28.71, at the time of his retirement. Bedi, the unorthodox legspinner Bhagwath Chandrasekhar, and offspinners Erapalli Prasanna and Srinivas Venkataraghavan made up the celebrated spin quartet that dominated Indian cricket in the 1970s.

Outside his feats in Indian cricket, Bedi also enjoyed a successful career in the County Championship with Northamptonshire, for whom he took 434 first-class wickets at 20.89.

As a bowler, Bedi was a connoisseur’s delight, renowned for the classical beauty of his action and his ability to maintain a perfect length over long spells while subtly varying his pace, trajectory and release.

“But with the first he would cock his wrist more, deliver the ball slightly higher – it would spin sharply, stay wider of off, and be shorter than you anticipated. The next ball, ever so slightly undercut and a little quicker, would pitch further up and come in towards middle and leg stumps. To the first ball you were likely to play inside the line, and away from the body; to the second, outside the line, and round your front leg, so that there was a risk of inside edge on to the pad.

“The error of judgment induced in the batsman could be as much as a yard in length and a foot in width. And he could make these changes according to what he sensed the batsman was trying to do, in the moment of delivery, so firm and balanced were his action and rhythm.”

Bedi led India in 22 Tests, winning six, including three overseas. One of these was the historic chase at Port-of-Spain, Trinidad in 1976, when Bedi’s India chased down a target of 403, a record that stood until 2003. Charismatic, gutsy and fluent, Bedi the captain was admired by players from across the board including those from overseas. Bedi mentored a host of international players including Maninder Singh, Murali Kartik and Sunil Joshi.

On the domestic front, Bedi led Delhi in four Ranji Trophy finals, winning two of them, in consecutive seasons: in 1978-79 his team got the better of Gundappa Viswanath’s Karnataka, and in the following year they beat Sunil Gavaskar’s Bombay.

Bedi was always generous with his thoughts, and cricketers on tours of India often approached him for his insights. Once he even instructed Shane Warne on how to counter Sachin Tendulkar. “I was telling Shane Warne, after Sachin destroyed him in India, that a straight six is always hit off a good ball,” Bedi said in an interview with Wisden Asia Cricket. “You can’t set a field for a straight six … but I was always happy when somebody hit me for a six, because I thought I could get him out. But before I could explain the intricacies of outwitting a batsman, Warne said, `No, rubbish, this bloody thing is disappearing too often’.”

Bedi the coach was uncompromising. Even Virat Kohli was not spared, as he was graduating through age-group cricket at Delhi where Bedi was a coach. In 2017, while receiving a DDCA award from Bedi, Kohli recounted how the senior focussed on fitness. “From not understanding the importance of fitness and running away from him in Under-15, Under-17, Under-19 cricket only because he made us train too much to becoming [highly fitness-conscious] my life right now is something he has been doing for ages now,” Kohli was quoted as saying by the Hindustan Times. “So many people have been able to succeed because of that. Thank you, sir.”