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Bishen Singh Bedi might have a loose tongue, he might be a publicity monger, for all his acerbic he was, is and will be a great master of a dying trade. The art left arm slow bowling. Ask any one who’s savvy enough to speak cricket without having to refer to www, he would say “Bedi was the baap of all”.
In roughly 13 years, he played 67 tests. His returns with his left hand were 266 scalps at 28.71.
Muralitharan played for 18 years, 133 tests and returned with 800 scalps at 22.72
Let’s look at some statistics now…
What are we going to see now ?
a. Where Muralitharan was when he finished playing his 67th test
b. Removing all the home test matches, to avoid the “My favorite groundsman” factor for both bowlers
c. Remove the obvious minions, Zimbabwe is the only one in the list so we remove them
d. Because we are removing Zimbabwe whom Bedi never played and some might argue they had the Flower power when Muralitharan played. We make a compromise, in all matches Muralitharan took more than 2 wickets you discount 2 wickets (meaning you add it to his total tally, that of the Flower’s). Just to give him that advantage of hard earned wickets
Now, here’s how the board looks
Bishen “Loud mouth” Bedi
Tests played: 67
Tests played at home: 28
Wickets: 266
Wickets at home: 129
So we reset his tally to 266 - 129 = 137
So Bedi’s final figure is 137 test wickets at the end of his career
Muttiah “Protractor” Muralitharan
Total Tests played: 133
Wickets: 800
At the end of 67 tests…
Tests played at home: 35
Wickets: 340
Wickets at home: 195
Wickets against Zimbabwe (after deducting 2 from tally more than 2, the actual tally is 12): 9
So the rest tally is: 340 – 195 – 9 = 133
After 67 tests who is great ?
Who tested the batsmen the most ?
And who troubled the establishment more ?
Let us not let someone belittle one of our greats. We Indians have this habit of letting go of our culture, history & the greats, as told by our forefathers. Thanks to politics we can’t acknowledge the fact that we have let ourselves hijacked.
Let’s try and make Indian cricket politics free !! (outside the purview of BCCI of course)
As of now we know that there are only two real men in Indian cricket, one is Prasanna and the other is Maninder Singh. Let’s join them in telling the world “No Muralitharan, you are wrong… Singh Bedi is King Bedi”.
And hope he says “Sorry, I was misquoted” (as they all say !!)
There are only two men in Indian cricket
Once upon a time
He will often brag about his self goal, but his cricketing highs far outweigh anything football in the mouth. These were the heady 90s, Tubs in aviators, stubble, the drinks’ boy, bag and pre-mixes in hand and always a good sledge away from you – Birdy on strike, Tubs keeping, but before that, a brief background – Birdy was unemployed, a corporate hippy. Tubs behind the stumps, enquiring about Birdy’s pay-package, how many figures? Do they even pay you? Weak grin from stoned Birdy. Pink slip, salary slip, more slips of the mouth – how does it feel to be unemployed?
Birdy was stoic enough, he never spoke much, more grins. And drinks happen, swigs, Pussy partakes, Freddie, Keith, Bhaskar, Sajith, Kartik did you? One thing’s for certain, Roop did not partake. Those was rummy cricketing days, daze, yeah.
Through Delhi, Bombay, Hyderabad, we talked cricket, dirty, filthy, abusive cricket – Maninder-Saba Karim imitations…kehna parega, Saba; I even mailed Saba Karim, (the only cricketer I’ve ever mailed); years later when I ran into Saba at a bookshop, we finally got closure on that episode, or did we?
Tubs spent most of his adult life imitating Imran Khan, you can hear him Immu away here. It’s in print, but if you listen close enough, you’ll hear him alright. Maybe you can put your ear to the screen.
Phone call, looks like I lost the thread. But we did talk some cricket, which beats writing cricket – Happy Bored Day Tubs.
