Bishan Bedi’s unchanged melodies

My earliest screen memory of Bishan Singh Bedi who passed away on Monday is of a happy bouncy man celebrating the fall of an England wicket during his last Test series in 1979 I loved the highlights package on Doordarshan but was completely bowled over by the way he celebrated and this may have not been wickets claimed by himI wondered how someone who had been axed as captain a few months prior could be so cheerfulYes I had followed that disastrous 197879 tour of Pakistan where Bedi had not emerged smelling of rosesNever in my wildest dreams I imagined back then that Irsquod get to know the man But I did It all started in Bangalore 1998 when senior journalist G Rajaraman requested him to grant me an interview in the Chinnaswamy Stadium press box during the India v Australia TestThis was my first interaction with him after 1990 when he then cricket manager allowed me to interview some of the India players before they left for the AustralAsia Cup in Sharjah He was under no obligation to do so especially for an upstart completely unknown to him It was at that same spot in the Brabourne Stadium five years later that I asked another coach permission to speak to a new entrant ldquoNo you canrsquotrdquo came the replyBishan could be the most warm loveable man on earth But he had a history of strong unchangeable opinions Yes stubborn is what I wanted to say No one in this wide world could get him to agree that T20 cricket was good for the game He abhorred it He didnrsquot even want to talk about it and he just didnrsquot concede the plus side of the Indian Premier League ldquoRubbish nonsenserdquo Even ldquopremature ejaculationrdquo he would describe it asVery few administrators earned his admiration and he spent a cricketing lifetime fighting them And just like he expected every cricketer to be a good student of the game he wanted each administrator to be a good servant of cricketThere was no question of winning arguments with him I tried to come close He was always under the impression that former Test batsman AG Kripal Singh was his colleague in the selection committee which picked Indiarsquos 1983 World Cupwinning team I pointed out that the South Zone representative was Ghulam Ahmed and not Kripal Singh He stuck to his guns on the basis of his recollection that Kripal Singh watched the 1983 final with him at his Delhi home I even produced a photograph of the selection committee and a list of selectors for that season from the BCCI Annual ldquoYou know how BCCI get it wrongrdquo he said Thatrsquos the last we spoke on the issueHe could be wrong in cricketing forecasts too For example he didnrsquot give Sourav Ganguly a chance to succeed as captain in 2000ldquoGangulyrsquos elevation to the hottest seat is no mean achievement There is no doubt in my mind that at the end of the day Gangulyrsquos fate will not be any different from that of his predecessorsrdquo he wrote in Cricket Talk magazine Yes Ganguly did get the sack but it was five years after Bedirsquos prediction and I donrsquot recall him criticising that decision in the mediaWhenever I needed a strong view on a controversy Bedirsquos was the number I dialled At times what he said was unprintable would invite legal issues Never did he say something with a donrsquotquotemeonthis riderHe had no time for bowlers with suspect bowling actions On Tuesday Mike Coward the celebrated Australian writer sent me a passage from his book Champions published by the Bradman Foundation several years ago It contained an interview which Bedi gave him Throwing had to be there while he spoke on the spirit of cricket ldquoDonrsquot chuckrdquo said Bedi ldquoThatrsquos not cricket Why do we say lsquoitrsquos not cricketrsquo Itrsquos an English proverb you know We never say lsquoitrsquos not football or itrsquos not hockey or itrsquos not tennis or itrsquos not golfrsquo No it is always associated with cricket because cricket is associated directly with uprightness and honesty and integrityrdquoWe shared a common love for cricket books He loved reading Australian writers Jack Fingleton Ray Robinson They were his favourites and Gideon Haigh from the current lot Robinson and he were friends and Bedi was one player Robinson reached out to for help while writing The Wildest Tests He also appreciated good work done by current journalists and once complimented a newspaper on Twitter for devoting an entire page to domestic cricket matchesBedi took great pride in playing domestic cricket Captaining Delhi to two consecutive Ranji Trophy titlesmdashagainst Karnataka in 197879 and against Bombay the following season must have been career highs for him The devaluation of the Duleep Trophy annoyed him no end and from a personal point of view his best moment in the tournament was leading North Zone to a title triumph in 197374 against his pal Hanumant Singhrsquos Central Zone at the Brabourne StadiumAmong domestic batsmen his favourite was Ramesh Saxena who figured in only one Test in the English summer of 1967 ldquoI never saw anyone in Indian cricket who could jump out to spinners like Saxena He could create terror for the opposition Unfortunately Ramesh lacked in mental application and he had no one to guide himrdquo Bedi told meWhen Bedi was not discussing serious cricket he would be cracking jokes Indeed you couldnrsquot miss him even in a crowd Hersquod straighttalk like an Australian be courteous like most Englishmen and New Zealanders and laugh aloud like a West Indian And we all know that he was a proud Indian Even as a 11yearold I could sense that from the bubbly bespectacled and brilliant cricketer on television in 1979Bishan Singh Bedi made cricket beautifulmiddayrsquos group sports editor Clayton Murzello is a purist with an open stance He tweets ClaytonMurzelloSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper