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The Hindu
The Hindu
Sport
P.K. Ajith Kumar

Murali Kartik says he is what he is only because of Bishan Singh Bedi

Murali Kartik remembers the question, and the answer, from Bishan Singh Bedi, on his first day with the legendary spinner. “Who is a spinner?” Bedi asked. He gave the answer himself: “A spinner is somebody who spins the ball.”

Kartik, a talented left-arm spinner who probably deserved to play more than the eight Tests or 37 ODIs that he played for India, told The Hindu that he would not have become a left spinner at all if not for Bedi.

“I must have done a lot of good deeds to get him as my guru” said Kartik of the Bedi, who passed away on Monday. “I am what I am because of all that time he spent with me, making a non-left arm spinner into a left-arm spinner. I was a medium-pacer before I met him. Shirdi Sai Bab gave up his life on a Dashami and my guru gave up his mortal remains on a Navami and created on a Dashami.”

He said everything he learnt about left-arm spin, he learned from him. “When Wisden asked me to write on the occasion of his induction into the Hall of Fame, I was more than humbled,” he said. “He was straightforward. He called a spade a spade, and that is another thing I have learnt from my guru.”

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