Bedi criticises Gavaskar

New Delhi: Spin legend Bishan Bedi has blasted former Indian opener Sunil Gavaskar for enjoying powers without wanting to be accountable for anything.

“He wants the glamour, the position and if there are any financial gains so much the better… but he does not want any accountability. He’s always liked power without accountability,” Bedi has been quoted by the ‘Oulook’ magazine as saying.

Bedi’s comments followed drama over the selection of the Indian coach in which Gavaskar played an important role in his capacity as a prominent member of a seven-member panel formed to zero in on the coach.

Aussie Dav Whatmore, who has coached Sri Lanka and Bangladesh with success in the past, was supposed to be a front-runner for the job but Gavaskar was not in favour of his appointment and put forth his views through newspaper columns.

Gavaskar proposed several Indian names including that of his brother-in-law Gundappa Viswanath, before proposing former England spinner John Emburey’s name.

Emburey made the shortlist of two coaches at Whatmore’s cost but the panel eventually selected low-profile South African Graham Ford. Indian cricket officials were in for a shock when Ford, who is working with England County Kent, refused the offer.

Officials were forced to go back to septuagenarian Chandu Borde as a stop-gap arrangement.

Former skipper Bedi blamed Gavaskar for being a destructive influence on Indian cricket.

“You tell me what his contribution has been. He is destructive, there is nothing positive,” said Bedi, the most successful bowler among the spin quartet of the 1970s which comprised Erapalli Prasanna, Bhagwat Chandrashekhar and Srinivas Venkatraghavan, apart from him.

“I remember the time I was called by the then National Cricket Academy director Brijesh Patel, along with Prasanna and V.V. Kumar to train spinners there. We did not hear at all from the NCA chairman Gavaskar before, during or after the camp,” said Bedi, who contributes columns to cricketnext.com.