MUMBAI: It was an evening in mid-March. The year was 1987, but Pakistan's former left-arm spinner Iqbal Qasim remembers it like it was yesterday.
India and Pakistan were locked in an intense battle in the fifth Test on a treacherously spinning wicket at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore. On the 'rest day', at a function, Qasim approached his 'idol' Bishan Singh Bedi.
"I told him: 'Bedi paaji, your latest student, Maninder Singh, is doing very well (he took seven for 27 in the first innings and three for 99 in the second)."
However, he surprised me with his furious reaction: 'What good bowling! He has given away free runs to the batsmen! He's trying too much, attempting to turn the ball more when the wicket itself is turning. He should just bowl a good line and length, and allow the wicket to do the rest', Qasim told TOI from Karachi.
"Bedi's criticism of Maninder sparked something in me and Tauseef Ahmed. We realized that even we were trying too much on seeing a turner, like pacers bowling short on seeing a green track. We just needed to implement Bedi paaji's advice, and we did exactly that," recalled Qasim. Qasim and Ahmed took four wickets each to bowl Pakistan to a historic series-clinching 16-run win.
"Bedi sahib was a legend. I was his fan since childhood, I used to hear about his tales from Mushtaq (Mohammad) sahib. I always treated him as my mentor. He would meet me very affectionately. He was the ustaad of the art of spin bowling who loved to share the nuances of his art," Qasim said.
There was huge respect for Bedi's craft across the border. "He was truly a gentleman cricketer… great character and always willing to help other players irrespective of which team they belong to. The greatest left arm spinner of his time," former Pakistan captain Asif Iqbal, who played against Bedi in the historic 1978 series (that saw the revival of India-Pak cricketing ties), told TOI from London.
Bedi had so much respect for Gavaskar's batting that he named his son from his first wife, an Australian, Gavasinder Singh!
Bedi played a special role in former India skipper Dilip Vengsarkar's life. The innings that brought a teenaged Vengsarkar into limelight and earned him an India call-up - a blistering century for Mumbai in the 1975 Irani Cup in Nagpur - was studded with seven sixes off Bedi and EAS Prasanna, with four of them coming off the former.
"Bedi was my first captain on an international tour, when I was picked for the 1976 tour of New Zealand. I was just 19 at that time, and before my debut, he told me: 'You should compare yourself with the best in the business. Don't be overawed by the big names, because you're going to play against the Hadlee brothers, Glenn Turner, Viv Richards or Clive Lloyd, because in international cricket, everybody is the same.'"
Like in the case of men's cricket, Bedi mentored a key figure in women's cricket too. "Saddened to hear the sad news of the passing away of my guru and idol. He was one of the best left- arm spinners of all time, and if I was successful, it was due to his advice and the tips that he gave me right through my career. May his soul rest in peace and God give his family the strength to deal with the irreplaceable loss," said former India women's team captain Diana Edulji.
One of the people Bedi was closest to in the Indian team was the late Dilip Sardesai, who is still remembered for his exploits during India's victorious tour of the West Indies in 1971. "He was the second person to deliver the annual Dilip Sardesai memorial lecture (at CCI in 2012). In his speech, Bedi recalled how he shared a room with Bedi on many tours. He was Dilip's close friend, confidante and was very fond of us. Most times when he was in Mumbai, he would stay with us.
He used to fondly call me: 'Neena'," said Sardesai's wife Nandini.
