Indian cricket legend Bishan Singh Bedi has died aged 77 after a prolonged illness.
He was battling age-related illnesses and had undergone a few surgeries in recent years.
Bedi, regarded as one of the world’s finest ever spin bowlers, captained India in 22 of his 67 Tests and took 266 wickets.
He made his debut against West Indies in 1966 and played his last Test against England at The Oval in 1979.
Bedi also played English county cricket for Northamptonshire and finished his career with 1,560 first-class wickets, the highest by any Indian bowler.
Bedi was an integral part of a famed quartet of India’s world-beating spin bowlers in the 1960s and 70s, which included Erapalli Prasanna, Bhagwat Chandrasekhar and Srinivas Venkataraghavan. In 2021, Bedi was picked by readers for a place in BBC Sport’s all-time India Test XI.
Born in Amritsar in India’s Punjab state, Bedi began playing cricket at school. When he turned 20, he became the 113th cricketer to represent India in Tests.
Over a 12-year career his best bowling performance came in 1969 when he picked up seven wickets for 98 runs against Australia in Kolkata (then known as Calcutta), a Test match that India lost.
In his trademark pink or bright blue turban, Bedi was a spin bowling purist’s dream. With a languid run-up and a fluid action, bowling came naturally to him. Cricket writer H Natarajan described the left arm spinner as “stealthy, silent and deadly, a master of deception who conjured variations in flight, loop, spin and pace without any perceptible change in action”.
(BBC sport)
