The cricketing community, including legends like Kapil Dev and Virender Sehwag, gathered to bid farewell to the legendary Indian spinner Bishan Bedi on Tuesday. Bedi passed away on Monday after a prolonged illness at the age of 77. Several prominent figures from Indian cricket, such as the World Cup-winning captain Kapil, Madan Lal, Sehwag, and Kirti Azad, paid their final respects at his last rites.
In addition to them, Ashish Nehra, Ajay Jadeja (who is currently a part of the Afghanistan support staff), and Murali Kartik, who learned the art of spin bowling from the “Sardar of Spin,” were also present to pay their respects.
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“A whole lot of first-class cricketers were also present. He was a great cricketer as well as a great human being,” said a former cricketer who was present at the Lodhi Crematorium. Born in Amritsar in 1946, Bishan Singh Bedi played 67 Tests for India and took 266 wickets with 14 five-wicket hauls and one 10-wicket haul.
He was part of Indian cricket’s golden quartet of spinners that also had Erapalli Prasanna, Bhagwat Chadrasekhar and Srinivas Venkataraghavan. They formed the core of India’s bowling unit for more than a decade between 1966 and 1978.
Bishan Singh Bedi was briefly the manager of the Indian cricket team in 1990 during tours of New Zealand and England. He was also a national selector and mentor to many talented spinners like Maninder Singh, Sunil Joshi and Murali Kartik, who all swore by his technical insight.
Bishan Singh Bedi was also one of the most admired Indian captains and he led the team for nearly four years in Test cricket between 1975 and 1979 after Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi’s retirement.
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