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Bishen Bedi's Latest Comments On
Murali's Action Pathetic!
© Top Spin By Suni For LankaWeb Cricket.
August 21st 2007
Unwarranted remarks by former Indian cricket captain Bishen Bedi about
Sri Lankan Cricketing superstar spinnerr Muttiah Muralidaran seem to
have surfaced again and once again appears to have been made irresponsibly
and with rank disregard to the ICC and unacceptable coming from a cricketing
dignitary of his so called reputation and status in Indian Cricket albeit
on many an occassion steeped in controversy and pathetic which isn't
really the opinion of the more discerning dignitaries of the game who
know him to be a rabble rouser often given to rather reckless and irresponsibly
vapid comments. In this sense it seems fair to deduce that the verbose
and often self opinionated Bedi has once again thrown a curve ball at
Murali's bowling action digging up old skeletons from his own personal
closet of frustrated disdain and derision and in all probabilities as
some beleive, a result of incentives provided to him by sources who
would love to see Muari's mindset distracted just prior to the Sri Lankan
tour of Australia for obvious reasons in what may be in his opinion
an opportune time to do a bit of surreptitous muckraking although surreptitious
it is not, given the publidity it has received!
Bedi is also known to be a champion of the Australian legspinner Shane
Warne where he is all praises for Australia's golden boy who was suspended
from the game having been caught using banned performance enhancing
substances and got away cheaply courtesy of the Australian Cricket Board
which Bedi has very conveniently circumvented in all his offers on the
topic to the media and his wretched attempt to denigrate one of the
true cricketing greats of all time will not go down well with judicious
cricket lovers around the world whose single minded focus will be the
fact that the ICC had Murali's action thoroughly investigated and made
a final ruling that it was legitimate! People like Bedi are an epitome
of the saying "It's hard to teach old dogs new tricks" offset
against getting the man to shut up!
So what on earth is our turbaned "sing sing" from the Punjab
doing making ungainly comments of a defamatory nature about Muralidaran
and ranting away on a buried topic that seems to have been exhumed a
La Bedi ? one might be inclined to ask! In saying that " Murali's
action is the best shott putt in cricket( the last time around it was
a javelin throw!) it seems to be a pathetic reflection upon his personal
frustrations some of which he may have experienced at the hands of the
Indian Cricket Board some years ago when he was rather ingloriously
dumped from the Test Squad also due to his verbosity and inefficiancy
as an all round gentleman player unable to contain rather temperamental
outbursts and continued criticism of his peers while still a player
which subsequently resulted in his getting booted from the Indian side.
Former Indian captain the great Sunil Gavaskar should bear testimony
to this as he once faced a barrage from Bedi also. Once again Bedi's
comments are sad and absolutely uncalled for and an apology would be
in order although this time around and very justifiably so, Muralidaran
is not going to settle for an apology only and is demanding Rs.750 million
(about 7.5M US$.) from Bedi for his defamatory remarks failing which
legal action appears to be pending!
Bedi has often been at the centre of controversy in which he has wallowed
throughout his career and his involvement with Indian Cricket causing
much embarrassment to the Indian Cricketing Board even after retirement,
something which many Indian and International Cricketing personalities
are perfectly aware of and it may be in order to reprimand him for his
latest comments on the bowling action of one of the great cricketing
personalities of all time as the intent of his comments seems to be
directed at denigrating Murali who on any given day being the gentleman
that he is would normally take all of this in stride with that well
known smile of his and a shrug rather than respond to the grass roots
type Bedi comments but in this case Bedi seems to have gone a bit too
far as Murali is up in arms against Bedi and is contemplating legal
action!
Bedi seems to have almost blindly, overlooked the fact that the issue
of Muralitharan's bowling action deemed 'chucking' by a few double visioned
and cross eyed Australian and new Zealand Umpires amongst others which
caused many a furore both on and off the field involving the governing
bodies of Cricket in Australia, England etc. and was finally settled
beyond reasonable doubt( or so it was thought!) as it was taken up by
the International Cricket Conference the ICC which is the supreme governing
body of International Cricket which accepted both medically and technically
that the bowling action of Muralitharan was perfectly legitimate and
that he was wrongfully incarcerated so what is Mr Bedi whining and belly
aching about again?
The Lancashire County Cricket Club who repeatedly invited Murali to
play in the County Championship bears testimony to this followed by
the many accolades and praises bestowed upon him both as a highly talented
player and a charming personality. Conversely the umpire who no-balled
him in Australia a certain Mr. Darryl Hair alongside his prime minister
John Howard who took the same route have egg all over their faces indefinitely
where the consequences were a bit more severe in the case of Hair who
was politely excluded from first class umpiring duties after the recent
Pakistan ball tampering incident in England and appears to be another
individual of the same ilk as Bishen Singh Bedi who revels in controversy
where in his case there is nothing to suspend him from other than his
suspenders perhaps for his verbosity! Howard of course despite being
although Australia's top dog is no authority on cricket and has been
ignored by those who matter although at the time he did cause quite
a stir which sent him scurrying for cover and came up with a few incoherent
mumblings in trying to make amends!
It must be added in all fairness to Bedi that he was a magnificient
bowler for India during his prime, befuddling many a batsman with his
wily variation of spin, guile and deception and perhaps was let go prematurely
by India but gives him no justification to arrive at conclusions which
are unfair, controversial and contradictary about someone who is as
highly respected and loved for his charm, decorum and talent as Murali,
to which Bedi could not hold a candle beyond changing the colours of
his turban which he was also reputed for and in the cricketing world
of today he would be considered mediocre compared to Murali. Curiously,
he seems to have chosen the wrong location to vent out his frustrations
as he has also irked the wrath of the Sri Lankan Cricket Board and many
promineent cricketing personalities including former Skipper Arjuna
Ranatunga and are providing all the support for Muttiah Muralidaran
to pursue Bedi to bring him to task and shut him up for good!!
Speaking of throwing! there is also a pun in the cricketing world that
Bedi himself might have a latent skill hitherto unknown about his prowess
at throwing a javelin of a different sort i.e. the verbal javelin he
has once again thrown at Murali and has raised many an eyebrow around
the cricketing world about its timing and whether it is a deliberate
attempt to bring disrepute to someone who is poised to become the greatest
bowler of all time on the verge of claiming the record of the most number
of wickets by a bowler in both versions of the game.
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