November 8, 2001

Bowled over by the great Bedi

- Jonathan Dyson

Sunday, 4th November, 7.45 am:
I sit crossed legged on a small towel on a hard stone floor. My back is perfectly straight. I feel relaxed and at ease with the world. Eighteen other young men are seated with me. We listen to our instructor, who talks slowly and quietly. He talks of the divine and the spiritual. After our instructor has finished speaking, we sing the vowel sounds of 'r' 'o' and 'u' three times each. This is followed by a series of breathing exercises. The atmosphere is a strange mixture of relaxation and concentration.

No, I am not at one of the famous yoga classes in Rishikesh. Nor am I in one of those vivid dream sequences when you wake up wondering if it was all true. I am, in fact, amid the more mundane surroundings of the Pallam Air Force cricket ground. I am with the Delhi squad as the team prepares for the last day of their Ranji Trophy match against Services. And my instructor is Bishan Bedi, Delhi's manager.

It had all started the day before. I took an auto rickshaw from my hotel in Pharaganj, and arrived at the ground around eleven. I imagined a quiet day on my own, sampling some Indian cricket in the sun, wondering how Hussain et al would cope with the Indian spinners come December.

Yet, I was greeted like a king. The groundsman strolled up to me almost as soon as I had entered the ground and introduced himself as he exclaimed "Hello my friend!" As we walked round the boundary talking cricket and drinking Cola, he asked if I would like to meet Bishan Bedi. My heart missed a beat. "THE Bishan Bedi?!" I asked. I had no idea that arguably India's greatest ever bowler was there.

As we talked, I soon discovered that Bedi is a member of that rare species, a man rich and famous and yet unfailingly genial and polite. We compared the English and Indian grassroots structures, we discussed how the contrasting surfaces around the world create different players, and we exchanged thoughts on how England might perform in the Tests.

At lunch, as Bedi wandered into the dining room, B S Rattan, former manager of Delhi, began to explain Bedi's unique way of preparing his players on match days. "Bedi feels that his players should be the masters of their technique, not its slaves," he said. "Yoga, which literally means to be at one with yourself, is used to help create such a peace of mind within the players.

"The whole process helps open up possibilities and create flexibility within the mind, thereby helping the players cope when they are under pressure in the middle. Bedi sees cricketers as spiritual disciples, and feels that you can experience the divine through cricket."

Rattan invited me to join in the preparations the following day. And that is how I found myself sitting on the stone floor of the Pallam grounds pavilion that Sunday morning, close to Test players Sharandeep Singh and Rahul Sanghvi.

That morning, the match was intriguingly poised. Services needed 20 more runs to avoid the follow on, with just one wicket standing. From the first ball of the day, Thomson drove airily at a ball floated temptingly outside off stump from Sanghvi, and the ball was caught at extra cover. Delhi went on to skittle Services out in their second innings for 147, to win the match by an innings and 23 runs. Singh took six for 67.

So on the evidence of that particular day, Bedi's extraordinary way of preparing his team is proving successful. Yet, what struck me most about the day as a whole was the open-minded nature of all the players. They all took the yoga and mediation exercises seriously, and you could feel the irresistible sense of a determination to improve.

It is hard to explain how astonished I was by the players' attitude. In England, county cricketers at times appear to treat the game almost as a chore, a way of securing some financial stability. In Simon Hughes's book, 'A Lot Of Yard Yakka', about his life as a county cricketer, he describes the atmosphere in the indoor nets at his first training session with Middlesex, as "pregnant with reluctance".

That was in the early eighties, and admittedly a lot has changed since then, with dietitians, video technology and even an academy at Yorkshire. Yet, in some fundamental ways, things remain the same. As an example, not so long ago, John Buchanan, now managing Australia, was forced out as Middlesex coach, simply because several of his players found his innovative approach just too much.

On this unforgettable Sunday morning there wasn't a hint of reluctance from the Delhi players. After the match I asked them whether they felt they benefited from Bedi's preparations, and the response was a unanimous 'yes!' Spinner T Anand told me: "[The preparations] really help in the act of controlling oneself, because every action is done by the mind, and if the mind is fit and in one's control, you can do much better."

Good luck Bish, good luck Delhi. You are an example not only to the rest of India, but to the rest of the cricketing world.

GE Features

Earlier Diaries:
A Backpacker's Diary

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Illustration: Bijoy Venugopal