Image Credit- Getty
At the age of 77, former India captain Bishan Bedi
passed away in Delhi.
Having suffered from illness for the previous two
years, Bedi had various operations, including one on his knee approximately a
month ago. His wife Anju, their children Neha and Angad, as well as his son
Gavasinder and daughter Gillinder from a previous marriage to Glenith Miles,
survive him.
Bedi, one of the best left-arm spinners in history,
played for India in 67 Tests and 10 ODIs between 1967 and 1979. At the time of
his retirement, he had 266 wickets at an average of 28.71 in Test matches,
making him India’s leading wicket-taker. The renowned spin quartet that
dominated Indian cricket in the 1970s consisted of offspinners Erapalli
Prasanna, Srinivas Venkataraghavan, the unconventional legspinner Bhagwath
Chandrasekhar, and Bedi.
Bedi, in addition to his accomplishments in Indian
cricket, also had a great career with Northamptonshire in the County
Championship, where he collected 434 first-class wickets at a rate of 20.89.
“Sad news indeed,” the former India captain
Sunil Gavaskar, Bedi’s team-mate in 44 Test matches, said. “He was the
finest left-hand bowler that I saw.”
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.
“Like most great bowlers, his variation was
subtle,” the England captain Mike Brearley wrote of him. “Of all the
slow bowlers of Bedi’s time, none forced you to commit yourself later than he
did. With tiny, last-second adjustments of wrist and hand-angle, he could bowl
successive balls that looked identical, perhaps as if each would land on a
length just outside off stump.
The charming Bedi was revered as captain by athletes
from all around the world. In 22 Tests as India’s captain, he had six
victories, including three abroad. One of these was the famous pursuit at
Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, in 1976, when Bedi’s India managed to catch the target
of 403, setting a record that lasted until 2003.
On the domestic front, Bedi captained Delhi to four
straight Ranji Trophy finals, winning two of them. In 1978–79, Bedi’s team
defeated Gundappa Viswanath’s Karnataka, and the following year, they defeated
Sunil Gavaskar’s Bombay.