Sports biographies are never easy and when you have someone as iconic as Bishan Singh Bedi as the subject, it only gets tougher. One of the most influential spinners that the game has ever seen, Bedi’s persona both on and off field is the kind of thing that books are written about. Bishan: Portrait of a Cricketer by Suresh Menon is a lucid and well-written book that brings forth a man who possessed a divine grace and yet came across as human, perhaps much too human, in his conduct. Like the legendary cricketer he profiles, Menon isn’t someone who looks at things that aren’t and this is one quality that makes this book a wonderful read. One of the most graceful spinners in the history of cricket, Bedi, an integral part of the fabled spin quartet that helped India win 23 of the 98 Tests played in the two decades between 1962 and 1983, played all the first Tests that India ever won in England, West Indies, New Zealand and Australia. Before the emergence of Erapalli Prasanna, Bhagwat Chandrasekhar, Srinivas Venkataraghavan and Bedi, India had never won a Test abroad (they won seven out of the 76 played before the coming of the four). Menon recounts how Bedi — considered by many as the first amongst equals — could “pitch six balls on the same spot and make them (batsmen) do different things, or pitch them at different points and make them do the same things.” Articulating further, the writer reconstructs Bedi’s remarkable bowling action by narrating photographer Ken Kelly’s study of a Bedi delivery. Kelly shadowed Bedi for almost four years in order to click the famous “relaxed tense mood” image, which is also the cover of the book that shows the immaculate balance a Bedi delivery possessed. Besides being the story of a sublime cricketer, Bishan also traces the life of Indian cricket. Given its evolution from being a colonial underdog to a team that was considered a world-beater in the mid-1970s, no account of Indian cricket can be complete without the apathetic attitude of the people who ran it. Those in this generation who haven’t seen Bedi play (a perfunctory Internet video search hardly throws up anything worthwhile on the famous bowling action), would at best think of him as a former cricketer of some repute who calls it the way it is in television debates. Be it weaving magic in the air before the ball traversed the 22 yards or the dressing room or even selection committee meetings, Bedi has always been passionate about the game. Menon doesn’t tire of recollecting the famous Bedi-BCCI run-ins. Every incident, right from the manner in which he learnt about making it to the Indian team (he reminded then captain Tiger Pataudi that he didn’t drink, only to be told that now that he was an India player he must have a drink with his skipper), to being compelled to sign a receipt for receiving extra allowance when the players hadn’t (Bedi, of course, refused), shows that players were treated as pawns in the very game they played for the country. Apart from standing up for the players on more occasions than anyone else when it came to uninterested administrators, Bedi was also someone who respected the game beyond description. He refused to bowl negatively even when it meant playing against the interest of his team; he applauded the batsmen who hit him for sixes; he even helped the opposition batsmen to counter the arsenal that the quartet unleashed. But his greatest moment as captain was to declare at 306 for 6 while playing West Indies in 1976 as a protest against intimidatory bowling after the umpired laughed off his complaints. In addition to being a player who won the respect of everyone who played against him — like Sir Garfield Sobers to those who saw him play like Sir Don Bradman, Bedi contributed immensely to making it better for the players of the future. Playing at a time when professional cricket in India meant having a second stable job (there’s a delightful anecdote about how the SBI almost built the Indian team before big sponsorship money came in), Bedi fought hard both as a player as well as an administrator later to change the manner in which things were conducted. It’s hard to imagine a time when only the captain got a room with running hot water while travelling. And did you know that Bedi was one of the selectors who picked the 1983 World Cup winning team In spite of his short stint as an administrator, Bedi’s efforts saw players not only get better amenities but, more importantly, respect. Today, Bedi’s 266 wickets from a mere 67 tests might not be as exciting as Muttiah Muralitharan’s 800 wickets or Anil Kumble’s 619 wickets, but wouldn’t the story be different if Bedi, whom Don Bradman called “a study for the connoisseur”, had played his cricket 30 years later Often called the greatest left arm spinner, Wilfred Rhodes (4,204 first-class wickets and almost 40,000 runs!) and his single series 31 wickets haul in 1903-04 was matched only by Bishan Bedi in 1977-78. Menon points out from a Bradman article, which he quotes in full, that Rhodes had the advantage of pitches that weren’t rain protected and he didn’t shoulder the added responsibility of captaining the side like Bedi. So who knows what the result would be like if there existed “some cricket ground where all contenders for the title of the greatest play in the same conditions and against the same opposition.” From someone who more than just knows his cricket, Suresh Menon’s Bishan: Portrait of a Cricketer is a fascinating account of one of the all-time cricketing greats. There is no doubt that Menon is a great admirer of Bedi and what he believed in, and yet he never comes across as a fanatic who can’t look beyond the bowler who could beat the best batsmen twice — once in the air and once after the ball was pitched. At some point Menon muses that had Bedi been more malleable, his stature would have been far greater. Perhaps that isn’t completely untrue, but who knows — had that been the case, maybe there wouldn’t have been a Bishan Singh Bedi. An almost flawless blend of facts, insights and myths surrounding a true legend of the game, this book is a great insight into one of the best mind, body and soul that graced the game.
Gautam Chintamani is an award winning Indian writer/filmmaker with over a decade of experience across print and electronic media
