Bedi played 67 Tests for India from 1967-1979, taking 266 wickets.
Bishan Bedi was born in Amritsar on 25 September 1946. He plied his trade in Indian domestic cricket for Punjab and Delhi. Bedi, a true master of his art, made his India debut against the West Indies in the 1967 Test in Kolkata.
He played 67 Tests, taking 266 wickets with a best of 7/98 at an average of 28.71 and an economy of 2.14. He formed a dangerous spin quartet for India with leg-spinner Bhagwath Chandrasekhar and off-spinners Erapalli Prasanna and Srinivas Venkataraghavan in the 1960s-1970s.
Bedi also played 370 FC matches and picked 1560 wickets, including a long tenure for Northamptonshire in English county cricket.
Apart from Tests, Bedi also featured in 10 ODIs, taking 7 wickets. He played a huge role in India’s first-ever ODI win, over East Africa in the 1975 World Cup. His miserly bowling figures of 12-8-6-1 are still considered a record.
He also captained India in 22 Tests and was infamous for declaring India’s innings in the 4th Test in Jamaica of the 1976 series against West Indies, when the four-prong pace attack injured 5 Indian players.
In November 1978, he became the first captain to concede an international cricket match, against Pakistan in Sahiwal after Sarfaraz Nawaz bowled 4 bouncers in a row and umpires didn’t call wide for a single one.
He later was the coach of the Indian team as well, who infamously on a 1990 tour of England, threatened to dump the entire team in the sea after poor performance.