Exclusive: Spin quartet looks back

Bishen Singh Bedi: But I learnt a lot about the craft of spin bowling from those two. Honestly.

Rajdeep Sardesai: How did you learn this craft of spin bowing? Were you all inspired by some great spin bowlers of the past? What was it that drove you to spin bowling in those years?

Srinivas Venkataraghavan: I think it was pretty simple. In fact in those days when we went to play in the practice pitches, we used to imagine the field. We used to tell the batsmen what field we had, and we are trying to get you out in such and such place. So, it was the match situation that was created there.

Erapalli Prasanna: Besides that, one has to understand, in those days there was no electronic media to project some of the great bowlers to have played. All we heard was over the radio, so we must thank the people who cover the game, who were so picturesque.

Rajdeep Sardesai: You actually learnt the game over the radio. I mean you were inspired to play the game through radio.

Erapalli Prasanna: Not only us, the people who followed this game were also inspired for the way it was commented.

Bhagwat Chadrashekhar: Sometimes I used to imagine myself to be Richie Benaud. I have never seen Richie Benaud in my life, and I just started bowling, I don’t know whether he was bowling like that or not. And then we used to have some godfathers.

Rajdeep Sardesai: Any person Mr Bedi, that you were inspired by?

Bishen Singh Bedi: I had heard Subhash Gupte take nine wickets on the radio in a Test in Kanpur, and that’s how I took up this game. I never saw Subhash bowl, I never saw Vinoo Mankad bowl. It just happened.

Erapalli Prasanna: Luckily, as far as I’m concerned, I think both of us (Venkataraghavan) are concerned, we played the last game which Subhash Gupte played against us – Central vs South (Zone). We played him, and I must tell you, I played him and we won the match by the spin of the coin. I learnt the art of spin bowling, especially flight while playing.

Srinivas Venkataraghavan: Yes. I had the privilege of playing against Subhash Gupte.

Rajdeep Sardesai: So what do you say therefore as I conclude this section, that the great tradition of Indian spin bowling in a sense began with the Vinoo Mankad-Subhash Gupte era, and then you all picked it up from there?

Bishen Singh Bedi: Even earlier, when Ghulam sahab, Ghulam Ahmed was there, Chandu Sarwate was there.

Rajdeep Sardesai: Is it easier to bowl spin in India than fast? Do you think so?

Bishen Singh Bedi: I wouldn’t agree with that. It is not easier to bowl spin, but it is comparatively easier to spin the ball for a longer period, in our conditions.

Rajdeep Sardesai: But the fact was that Chandrasekhar was faster than our fastest bowlers those days. He could bowl a bouncer.

Bishen Singh Bedi: That is the point Rajdeep. And if I remember, he hit Charlie Griffith with a bouncer once, but that was in the last innings of the series.

Bhagwat Chandrasekhar: I would like to say that it doesn’t make a difference whether you are playing outside the country or in India. Ultimately it comes to how you are bowling on the day. I never look at the wicket or look at the batsman. I just try to bowl line and length.

Rajdeep Sardesai: So is it not true that Chandrasekhar himself did not know what he was bowling next?

Bhagwat Chandrasekhar: No, this was a very, very wrong. To be precise, I can imagine Venkat or Pras or Bishen, if the wicket is slow or if the wicket is turning or if the wicket is fast, accordingly they will change their line of action. And then arrange the fielding according to the batsman. I wouldn’t do that. Any sort of wicket, any sort of situation – I will have one slip, one leg slip, one short leg, and then a midwicket. You give me four (fielders) and that’s the end of it.

Rajdeep Sardesai: That is incredible. You’ve told me a little secret of the magic of Chandra. But lets look at Indian cricket then and now. Are we seeing the death of the great spinner in today’s cricket? You believe that the great spinners are over?

Erapalli Prasanna: See, what has actually changed is the attitude of the bowler, especially a spin bowler. I don’t think his basic objective of taking a wicket exists anymore. He’s containing the batsman from scoring all the time.

Rajdeep Sardesai: Is that because of One-day cricket? Is that because of using heavy bats, shorter boundaries?

Erapalli Prasanna: Be it One-Day cricket, five-day cricket or four-day cricket, it is imperative, that the objective is wicket-taking. So, if you miss out on that, eventually you turn out to be a sort of a stock bowler.

Srinivas Venkataraghavan: What I feel is, it doesn’t matter if its Test cricket or One-day cricket. But what we are talking about here is line and length. You’ve got to keep bowling with accuracy, and consistency is much more important. If you are going to do that, eventually the batsman is going to take a chance and you are going to pick up wickets. But as long as you’ve bowled every single ball where you wanted and according to the field, you have done your job, whether it’s Test cricket or One-Day cricket, it doesn’t matter.

Bhagwat Chandrasekhar: But One-Day cricket does not allow as many close-in fielders for spinners.

Erapalli Prasanna: But the objective is bowling to take a wicket. You have got to have that.

Bhagwat Chandrasekhar: But if you are not going to have a slip or whatever it is that you need.

Erapalli Prasanna: If you are bowling to take a wicket, then short-leg or a long-off is not the criteria.

Bhagwat Chandrasekhar: But you have to contain the runs these days also.

Bishen Singh Bedi: There is a tendency these days to bowl a dot ball. My contention is, that is when you get a wicket it becomes a dot ball automatically. So why not think in terms of getting a wicket?

Rajdeep Sardesai: But you’ve got heavy bats, you have got shorter boundaries, you don’t think it makes a difference? You don’t think that the mis-queues go for six?

Bishen Singh Bedi: Never mind, no it’s not the shorter boundary, you still have got to bowl well.

Bhagwat Chandrasekhar: But One-Day cricket makes the difference.

Erapalli Prasanna: It’s just a myth, I mean the other day the way Vettori bowled here (in the Champions Trophy) against the Pakistan side, if someone had gone for a slog, where was he caught? Inside the 30-yard line. What happened to the bat then?

Rajdeep Sardesai: Okay. Let me ask you this though, that we actually talk about the death of the great spinners. But you have spinners who have taken what – almost 700 wickets – you’ve got Muralitharan, you’ve got 500-plus wickets in Anil Kumble, you’ve got Shane Warne who also has 600-plus wickets?

Bishen Singh Bedi: Okay. Can we talk about Kumble and Shane Warne and not the other one (Muralitharan)?

Rajdeep Sardesai: I know that you have got strong views on Muralitharan, but the fact is, between them, they have taken almost 2,000 wickets. In that sense, they are great bowlers.

Srinivas Venkataraghavan: Shane Warne, Anil Kumble – yes, they are.

Bishen Singh Bedi: Shane Warne is the real bowler, and Anil Kumble (too).

Erapalli Prasanna: I am not talking about that. But if you really look into the wickets they have taken, you just look at them. They have an objective of taking wickets every ball.

Rajdeep Sardesai: But that also shows that a great spinner even has a place in today’s cricket? Because if you take Anil Kumble, he is the old-style spinner.

The quartet seems to agree.

Bishen Singh Bedi: A good spinner will remain a good spinner.

Srinivas Venkataraghavan: Absolutely, whether it is One-Day cricket or Test cricket.

Bhagwat Chandrasekhar: But initially when One-Day cricket started, I think spinners were not there.

Erapalli Prasanna: That is because the English people at that point of time thought that block-hole bowling was the best method.

Bhagwat Chandrasekhar: Exactly. And then the same thing is carrying on even today.

Rajdeep Sardesai: So, the four of you would agree that if today you played a One-Day match, you would still think that there’s space for two Indian spinners, for example?

Bishen Singh Bedi: Definitely.

Rajdeep Sardesai: And you would actually play the Indian way and beat teams?

Srinivas Venkataraghavan: Absolutely.

Bishen Singh Bedi: Now, I would like to emphasize this, that you have got to play you own cricket in the Indian way. Now, West Indies won the game against South Africa by playing the West Indian way. They were not playing the Australian or the New Zealand way.

Rajdeep Sardesai: That is a good point.

Erapalli Prasanna: In the 1984-85 tour of Australia, when we had Ravi Shastri and L Sivaramakrishnan in the Benson & Hedges Cup, what happened? We won convincingly. That was the time when the cricketing fraternity came to know that spinners have a definite role to play in One-Day cricket.

Rajdeep Sardesai: Let me ask you the one contentious issue when you look at cricket then and now. Today’s players get contracts worth lakhs, they are all over on billboards. I don’t know whether you guys did any advertisements at all. I know Farooq Engineer did Brylcreem. I don’t know whether any of you did ads.

Srinivas Venkataraghavan: I did.

Rajdeep Sardesai: What ad was that?

Bhagwat Chandrasekhar: Nescafe?

Srinivas Venkataraghavan: One for Philips bicycle,I think. The other one was Nescafe.

Erapalli Prasanna: I did some coffee ad.

Rajdeep Sardesai: Okay. You did an ad for south (Indian) coffee. Did you do an ad?

Bhagwat Chandrasekhar: Quality biscuits.

Rajdeep Sardesai: Quality biscuits. Bishen Bedi? You did an ad?

Bishen Singh Bedi: I don’t remember.

Rajdeep Sardesai: You don’t remember? So, when you look at that and today, do you feel a sense of envy? Or do you say, ‘Maybe we played cricket in the wrong time’?

Bishen Singh Bedi: No. We played cricket at the right time. It is their good luck that they are getting money, good luck to them.

Erapalli Prasanna: Apart from that, let me be very honest. When the displacements of our wages were given - for six days – please make a note that it was not five days. We never felt that we were paid to play. We were just collecting the money, we didn’t even realise the importance of that pocket allowance or smoke money or whatever.

Rajdeep Sardesai: How much were you paid when you first played for India personally?

Erapalli Prasanna: I got Rs 325.

Srinivas Venkataraghavan: In my first Test match, I got Rs 200.

Bishen Singh Bedi: I told you about the Test match which India won, India won the Test match in Hyderabad against New Zealand, they were getting Rs 250 per Test match. We won the game in four days, so Rs 50 was deducted because the game didn’t go into the fifth day, and not a soul stood up.

Rajdeep Sardesai: So, instead of Rs 250, you got Rs 200, because the game got over in four days. So, you didn’t get your fifth day DA?

Bishen Singh Bedi: So, from then it was Rs 700. From Rs 700 it became Rs 2,000.

Srinivas Venkataraghavan: Next it was Rs 500 against Australia in 1969.

Rajdeep Sardesai: So, when you look at this, you think it’s a natural transition that’s taken place in the game. Has it changed, you think, the way people approach the game? That today’s cricketers as a result, are much more committed when he comes into a game, because it’s their obsession? But for you it was just a day out in the park.

The spin-quartet vociferously disagrees.

Srinivas Venkataraghavan: Playing for India was much more important for me. I was proud to be an Indian cricketer and I wanted to go there and perform for my country.

Rajdeep Sardesai: So it was just as much competitive, it was as professional, there was no question?

Srinivas Venkataraghavan: Absolutely, there was no question of giving any importance to money.

Bishen Singh Bedi: Money had nothing to do with it. I remember when I wore my first Indian blazer. I looked at myself in the mirror – I had goose pimples. And that is the kind of pride you would take on the field.

Srinivas Venkataraghavan: I always wore my India cap, I always did.

Erapalli Prasanna: I even said earlier, I never thought of money.

Rajdeep Sardesai: I think we have got a sense of what cricketers of that generation really were – very different perhaps, to today’s cricketers. I don’t think any of these guys had a Mahendra Singh Dhoni-like haircut. Did you?

The quartet laughs.

Rajdeep Sardesai: At least you weren’t called for a hair ad.

Erapalli Prasanna: I would have been happy if I had a few hair anyway.

Rajdeep Sardesai: We also want the four great spinning legends we have assembled here, to tell us about their favourite cricketing moments, and perhaps their favourite cricketers and batsmen they ever bowled to. Starting with you Chandra, who is the best batsman you ever bowled to?

Bhagwat Chandrasekhar: Well, I have bowled to some great cricketers really, like Sobers and Simpson. But I thought Ken Barrington was the one.

Rajdeep Sardesai: Most difficult to get out?

Bhagwat Chandrasekhar: Yes. He was the most difficult batsman to bowl to.

Rajdeep Sardesai: Bishen Bedi? The best you’ve bowled to?

Bishen Singh Bedi: He’s right. Barrington was a tough nut to crack. But I would like to think that to get Sobers out, it was an achievement. But to get slaughtered by him, was a delight. You just couldn’t take your eyes off him. He was magnificent in everything that he did.

Rajdeep Sardesai: (addressing to Venkataraghavan)Who was the best that you bowled to?

Srinivas Venkataraghavan: I’ll try to put it in two segments – left-handers and right-handers. The best left-hander – there’s no two opinions about it, is Sir Garfield Sobers. The best right-hander was the one I played against in county cricket – Barry Richards, anytime. He is one of the best I have bowled against.

Rajdeep Sardesai: If you had to travel a thousand kilometre to watch one cricketer, who would that be? Prasanna, who would be that one to travel 1,000 kilometre to watch him play?

Erapalli Prasanna: Garfield Sobers.

Rajdeep Sardesai: Sobers was the most incredible cricketer of your generation, is it?

The quartet unanimously agrees.

Bishen Singh Bedi: He was incredible in everything that he did, whether he was bowling fast, bowling spin, or batting, fielding.

Rajdeep Sardesai: And then would you say that even to cricketers you have seen today? The greatest of the last 40-50 years?

The quartet shouts ‘greatest ever’, ‘no two opinions about it’.

Rajdeep Sardesai: The one thing people believe is that batsmen of that generation used their feet more. So naturally, they were more adept at playing spin perhaps.

Srinivas Venkataraghavan: The only thing I could say about Sir Garfield, I mean he didn’t have to move his feet, he could play free strokes.

Rajdeep Sardesai: Was there any other personality that you would have travelled 1,000 kilometres, even if you look at today’s Sachins, the Brian Laras? Would you say in contemporary cricket, anyone who stands out for you, as someone whom you deeply admire?

Bhagwat Chandrasekhar: There is one guy, I would like to see Neil Harvey batting. I have heard a lot about him.

Rajdeep Sardesai: But anyone in present day cricket who you admire?

Srinivas Venkataraghavan: Then I would say definitely two of them, again I’m saying a left-hander and a right-hander. Definitely Brian Lara, when he is full flow, is magnificent, absolutely brilliant. I mean I have stood in Test matches and umpired, as you know, where he scored 182 against Australia at Adelaide; a magnificent knock. I mean he was out to a great catch, but that’s a different thing altogether. And the other one, definitely I would say, our own Sachin.

Rajdeep Sardesai: You would say these two.

Bishen Singh Bedi: I’d like to see Brian Lara and Sachin Tendulkar, against Glenn McGrath and this fellow, Shane Warne in their prime form, honestly. That would be a very good contest.

Rajdeep Sardesai: Okay. Your favourite cricketing moments, when you played the game, because as I said at the start, the ‘70s was a coming of age for Indian cricket. Starting with you Chandra, was it Oval 1971?

Bhagwat Chandrasekhar: Well, I would like to think so, because after the Australian trip in 1967, I had to come back with a leg injury. And I was struggling to stage a comeback. Luckily the selectors took a calculated risk on me and selected me for the English trip, and though I bowled well in the initial two matches and I bowled badly also, I was left with the last innings to prove myself. Whatever I did, I clicked and that was the happiest moment.

Rajdeep Sardesai: A lot changed in Indian cricket that day when we won. Was that you greatest cricketing moment.

Bishen Singh Bedi: I’ll tell you, I have never rated any particular moment as my greatest moment. Every time that India has won, and I have been a part of that winning combination, whether I have contributed or not is immaterial. When India has won, that has been my greatest moment.

Rajdeep Sardesai: Any moment that strikes out in your long careers?

Srinivas Venkataraghavan: I would definitely go back to the first one, in 1971, when we won against the West Indies in Trinidad, that was my great moment. I think it was the real comeback for us, that was a great Test match.

Rajdeep Sardesai: The great West Indian side with Sobers, Kanhai, Lloyd playing in it. Any other moment Prasanna?

Erapalli Prasanna: I think we have won about six games or eight games outside, out of which six games I have been instrumental in winning overseas. Of course those are the greatest achievements one can think of.

Rajdeep Sardesai: I’m going to end by asking all of you, is there any message you’d like to give all these young cricketers who are watching this programme, anything you’d like to tell them?

Srinivas Venkataraghavan: I will say only one thing. The problem with the present day cricketers is, the other day I read about Virender Sehwag not knowing that 413 is the world record (highest opening partnership) by Pankaj Roy and Vinoo Mankad. He didn’t know about it. I mean what they lack is a sense of cricket history. I think I would like to tell them to go back to cricket history and you can learn quite a lot from it.

Rajdeep Sardesai: Well, I was told the other day that Mahendra Singh Dhoni didn’t know who Farooq Engineer was. Is there any other message you’d like to give Chandra, to all the cricketers?

Bhagwat Chandrasekhar: Well, don’t try to follow anybody as such. Be yourself, and then concentrate on your game.

Bishen Singh Bedi: Be a little more humble on the field, that’s my only message, because they are throwing a lot many tantrums.

Erapalli Prasanna: Humility is a virtue, and they have to be at it. The past cricketers, it’s better to know of them and they have to focus on what they want to do.

Rajdeep Sardesai: A final word. If any of you were selected again for the Indian cricket team, would you be ready to go out there and still play? Does it still give you a lot of joy when you watch the game.

Erapalli Prasanna: Well of course.

Srinivas Venkataraghavan: Well, that is the only reason that I go out to umpire.

Rajdeep Sardesai: Sometimes when you umpired did you ever wanted to bowled? Did it ever occur to you that enough of umpiring?

Bishen Singh Bedi: Did you Rajdeep that he is the only one to have played, captained and umpired for India.

Rajdeep Sardesai: Did you ever feel like that you wanted to bowl?

Srinivas Venkataraghavan: Yes, I was itching to feel.

Rajdeep Sardesai: You were itching to feel? At the very end I would like to say thank you all very much for the wonderful memories you have given, your remarkable contribution to Indian cricket. Indian cricket owes a great debt to all four of you. Thank you very much. You all are truly spinning legends.

Srinivas Venkataraghavan: Thank you. We also own a lot to Indian cricket.

Bishen Singh Bedi: Thank you.

Erapalli Prasanna: Thank you for calling us.

Bhagwat Chandrasekhar: Thank you.

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