What was Bishan Singh Bedi’s bowling action like? Watch him toy with Australia | Cricket News

There are end number of Bishan Singh Bedi’s bowling videos in the Youtube. One can watch those in the loo, but the most watchable one is where he picks five for 55 in Brisbane against the same opponent.
The Australians were left bewildered, even the great Bob Simpson, who thought he would use the feet to combat his spin. He shimmied down the track and tried to hit him through cover, the ball bit his outside edge to the hands of Sunil Gavaskar at first slip. Bedi’s own favourite was the wicket of Greg Chappell during a game between Rest of the World and Australia in 1971-72. The ball drifted into his middle stump, landed on middle and leg, before it spat past his outside edge to hit the off-stump.
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“His bowling of course was great; he was a genius. I remember being always confused about his tricks and also have heard many great batsmen genuinely rave about his art. How the ball would seemingly be there – but not quite there when you reach out for it. Oh, he was a great bowler, a master, no doubt about it,” Michael Holding told this newspaper.

Happy Birthday Bishan Singh Bedi @BishanBediTook 266 Test wickets, including 14 “5 Wicket Haul”Gr8 Spell of 5 / 55 vs Australia 1st Test Brisbane 1977 Control and variation of curve, flight, spin and pace were exemplarySome Good Catches @Sunil_Gavaskar @WisdenCricket pic.twitter.com/SG5c6X1Ob9
— Zohaib (Cricket King)🇵🇰🏏 (@Zohaib1981) September 25, 2020
Former England captain Mike Brearley has once wrote that if one can use their feet against Bedi, he can be nullified. When Bedi joined Northamptonshire and Brearley played for Middlesex, the Englishman stepped out to him in his first over, but was beaten in the flight and was stumped.

“Like most great bowlers, his variation was subtle. Of all the slow bowlers of Bedi’s time, none forced you to commit yourself later than he did. The error of judgment induced in the batsman could be as much as a yard in length and a foot in width,” Brearley would later write in Wisden.
Bishan Singh Bedi released the ball like a loose-limbed yogic, every cell choreographing and culminating in that action of gods. The pivot was a pirouette, the follow-through is so smooth you wonder whether he had one at all.
Bedi made his Test debut against the West Indies in 1966 aged 20, went on to form part of India’s famous quartet of spin bowlers alongside Erapalli Prasanna, Bhagwat Chandrasekhar and Srinivas Venkataraghavan during the 1970s.
His best Test figures came in 1969 when he took 7 for 98 against Australia in Kolkata. Bedi won six of the 22 Tests he captained, including a remarkable victory in 1976 against the West Indies in Trinidad, as India chased down 403, a record that lasted 27 years.Most Read
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During his career, Bedi played domestically for Northern Punjab and Delhi, winning two Ranji Trophies with the latter.
He also spent five years in England between 1972 to 1977, plying his trade at Northamptonshire where he took 434 wickets and helped them win the Gillette Cup in 1976 – the club’s first domestic trophy.
He played his last Test match against England in 1979 and his 266 Test wickets was a record for an Indian bowler at the time.