Murali vs Bedi
When the first Test Match of the 3 Test Series between India and Sri Lanka was played at Galle, Indian spin legend had called on the ICC to ban the doosra after Muralitharan's retirement as according to him there is no way a doosra can be bowled with a legitimate action. Bedi had also said that ICC had bent its standard set of rules to allow Murali to bowl the Doosra. Everybody knew that Muralidharan was waiting for the first test match to get over so that he can retailiate in the capacity of a former test player.
Murali immediately after his retirmenet counter attacked Bedi saying that he was just an ordinary bowler having picked up just 200 odd wickets and there were no variations whatsoever in his bowling. Murali also went on to say that had Bedi played in the modern era he would have been hammered every ball by any batsman.
While Muralidharans criticism is justified as the provocation came from Bedi and he was merely giving it back it would have been wise if Murali would have verified records during Bedis era. Bishen Singh Bedi, then Indias premier bowler quit Test Cricket on 4th September 1979 as the third highest wicket taker with 267 wickets in 67 Tests at a bowling average of 28.71. Only West Indian Gibbs and Englishman Trueman with 309 and 307 wickets respectively took more wickets than Bedi at the time of his retirement. Another aspect which needs to be noted is that Bedi retired even before he turned 33 and only 43 wickets away from the then world record tally of 309 set by Gibbs. Muralidharan was past 38 when he retired and played only to achieve the 800 mark and had Bedi decided to prolong his career by 5 years he could have easily ended as the highest wicket taker in the world.
An area where Murali scores over Bedi is his bowling average of 22.72 is better than Bedis 28.71 but one should remember that Muralis owes his excellent bowling average to brilliant Sri Lankan bowlers while Indians have never been known for having a good fielding unit. Apart from this factor Bedis era hardly had any fielders of repute while the modern era boasts of extra ordinary fielders.
According to Murali Bedi got only 200 odd wickets but that is due to the fact that Bedi bowled only 21364 deliveries while Murali bowled more than twice as many as Bedi, 44039 deliveries to be precise. If one were to assume Bedi too bowled the same number of deliveries he would have finished with 548 wickets. Bedi bowled for a weak team India and was invariably bowling to world beaters like West Indies and Australia which had the likes of Richards, Greenidge and Clive Lloyd who were brutal on their day while Muralidharan had the luxury of bowling against weak teams like Zimbabwe and Bangladesh who had batsmen whose names were not heard of by many against whom he aggregated 200 wickets and one which went a long way in improving his bowling average and strike rate.
Let us hope that Muralidharan gets the facts right before criticizing a great like Bedi who was a great in his era and more importantly Bedi was known for having a classically correct action.
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