Few bowlers looked as unthreatening as Bishan Bedi. Most batsmen revised their opinion after the Indian spinner had languidly approached the wicket and slowly released a high arching ball that tantalised them to try and hit him out of the ground.
It never bothered him when they did because they would often soon perish to the magic subtleties of arguably the finest slow left-arm bowler of his time. Indeed there were few more beautiful sights on a cricket pitch than Bedi walking to the wicket as if on a Sunday-afternoon stroll and flighting the ball higher than perhaps any other bowler in Test cricket. Each delivery looked the same but they were different in length, pace and line. One would be a left-handed bowler’s orthodox leg-break to the right-handed batsman, another would drift in with the arm. Able to generate useful turn as well, Bedi said his greatest delight was getting a batsman stumped, as this meant he had beaten him twice — in the air and off the pitch.
Unmistakable in his brightly coloured turban, or patka, of his Sikh religion, Bedi missed only eight of the 75 Tests played by India from 1966 to 1979, taking 266 wickets (at an average 28.71), a record in his home country that stood for several years.
Watching Bedi bowl to the likes of Geoffrey Boycott, Ian Chappell or Garry Sobers was one of the most entertaining cricketing duels of the Seventies. His pronouncements could be just as entertaining, though they lacked the subtlety of his artful bowling.
Bedi was so liable to offer outspoken views on the state of the game or even team-mates such as Sunil Gavaskar (with whom he had a long feud) that an Indian official once told him to remember that he came from the land of the Mahabharata, Bhagavad Gita and Ramayana. “I replied that we also come from the land of the Kama Sutra.”
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Bishan Singh Bedi was born in Amritsar in Punjab, northern India, in 1946. Unlike many Indian cricketers, who start playing in the street almost as soon as they can walk, Bedi had no interest in the game until he was 12. He took it up at St Francis High School in Amritsar because he was being teased about being fat and thought he could lose weight by bowling fast.
Bedi soon turned to spin and was barely 15 when he made his first-class debut for Northern Punjab. Early success put paid to any idea of joining his father’s textile business and he made his Test debut at 20. As one of the few Punjabis in the side it took time for him to be accepted and it was not until the 1969-70 season in India that he made his mark. In eight Tests against New Zealand and Australia he took 36 wickets, including seven for 98 against Australia at Calcutta.
By the early Seventies he was a fixture in an India team that would feature three frontline spinners: Bedi and two out of Erapalli Prasanna, Srinivasaraghavan Venkataraghavan and Bhagwat Subramanya Chandrasekhar. He took another 25 wickets against England in 1972-73, including match figures of five for 109 at Delhi in the course of sending down 86 overs, of which 43 were maidens.
The easy rhythm of his approach and delivery meant that he was able to bowl for long spells and maintain his accuracy. Over the course of his Test career he conceded on average little more than two runs an over. Bedi ascribed his longevity — along with the abiding smoothness of his fingers and suppleness of his shoulders — to the fact that he washed his own clothes by hand, calling it “the best exercise”.
In 1972 he joined Northamptonshire, twice taking more than 100 wickets in a season and in 1976 helped the county to win the Gillette Cup, the first trophy in their history. Against Lancashire in the final at Lord’s he took three important wickets before conceding 26 in his last over as David Hughes hit him for three sixes. It was unusually rough treatment but Bedi took it with his usual phlegmatic calm. Bowling negatively was not for him and when he was hit for six he would often applaud the batsman.
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Bedi felt embittered after being released by the club in 1977 because the county said his bowling had fallen away and he was costing too much in wages.
His Test form held up and by then he had taken over the Indian captaincy. His first full series in charge was in the West Indies in 1975-76. On pitches made for batting he took 18 wickets in the four Tests and at Port of Spain his side made an unlikely 406 in the fourth innings, then a record chase, to win the match by six wickets. In the final Test at Kingston he declared the first innings early in protest against intimidatory bowling; three of his batsmen had been injured. He also ended the second Indian innings prematurely, sending out just five batsmen, declaring the others “absent hurt”.
In the 1976-77 Indian season he took 22 wickets against New Zealand followed by 25 wickets against Tony Greig’s England. After England’s emphatic win at Madras (now Chennai), Bedi accused John Lever, who had taken seven wickets, of using Vaseline to polish the ball and make it more likely to swing. The bowler, who had been rubbing the product on his eyebrows to stop sweat running into his eyes, was cleared of cheating.
Bedi refused several lucrative offers to join Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket franchise in Australia. He was rewarded by having his best Test series in Australia in 1977-78, taking 31 wickets at an average of 23.87, including ten for 194 at Perth. He played his final Test at the Oval in 1979. Disputes with the Delhi cricket authorities meant that he retired from the domestic game in 1981, earlier than he needed to. As it was he took a total of 1,560 first-class wickets at an average of only 21.69.
He was later appointed India’s coach and manager in 1990 but after a defeat to Australia said he would like to dump his side in the sea. While touring England in 1990 he criticised his old team-mate Gavaskar for refusing honorary membership of the MCC. On his return Bedi was sacked by the Indian Cricket Board, but remained a popular figure with a whimsical charm: “Critics call Bishan a rebel. Wrong. He was a cricketer who knew his rights well,” said the ex-India captain Kapil Dev. “He stood up for the cricketers, fighting for better match fees, travel facilities and accommodation.”
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Bedi later joined those who accused the Sri Lankan spinner, Muttiah Muralitharan, of having an illegal bowling action. Asked if he should think about tempering his “big mouth”, Bedi said: “Ninety-nine per cent of human existence is fence-sitting. In India it is 99.9 per cent. To stay silent about something is a crime in my opinion.”
He found a kindred spirit in the great Australian spinner Shane Warne and even advised him on how to bowl to the India superstar Sachin Tendulkar. “Warne asked me: ‘Bish how do you bowl to Tendulkar?’ He couldn’t sleep. I told him: ‘Bowl to him with a slip, a gully and a forward short leg. These guys are there to work on his mind. He’s such a great player he will not like these close catchers. He will think ‘How dare you do that to me?’ Shane tried it and he got Sachin caught at gully. I was in the press box and he waved his cap at me. Cricket is a battle of wits.”
Bedi met his first wife, Glen, on a tour of Australia. The marriage ended in divorce but he is survived by their two sons, Gavasinder and Gill, together with Anju, his second wife, and a son and a daughter from their marriage, Angad, an actor and model, and Neha.
Bedi was devoted to his dogs. During the 1979 World Cup in England, the Indian team was invited to Buckingham Palace. When Queen Elizabeth descended the stairs he was more interested in her corgis “plonking down each step”. He later took two corgis back to India. “The male was called Charles and the female Diana,” he recalled. “At the airport the British customs officer said: ‘Are you taking the mickey out of our royalty?” I replied: “No I’m taking royalty with me.”
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Bishan Bedi, cricketer, was born on September 25, 1946. He died after a long illness on October 23, 2023, aged 77