Alec Bedser
Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Full name | Alec Victor Bedser | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Born | Reading, Berkshire, England | 4 July 1918|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Died | 4 April 2010 Woking, Surrey, England | (aged 91)|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Height | 6 ft 0 in (1.83 m) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Batting | Right-handed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bowling | Right arm medium-fast | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Relations | Eric Bedser (twin brother) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
International information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
National side | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Test debut (cap 311) | 22 June 1946 v India | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Last Test | 12 July 1955 v South Africa | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Domestic team information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Years | Team | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
1939–1960 | Surrey | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Career statistics | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Source: CricketArchive, 7 January 2009 |
Sir Alec Victor Bedser
Bedser played
After retirement as an active cricketer, Bedser became the chairman of selectors for the English national cricket team, and was the president of Surrey County Cricket Club. He was
Early life and career
Bedser was born in
The family moved to
After leaving school, Eric and Alec became clerks at the same firm of solicitors in Lincoln's Inn Fields.[1] They were spotted practising in the nets for Woking Cricket Club by Surrey coach Alan Peach, and he recruited them to the staff at the Oval in 1938.[2] Initially, they were both medium-fast bowlers, but (after Alec won a toss of a coin) Eric became an off spinner instead.[1] They made their first-class débuts for Surrey against Oxford University in June 1939.[1]
Second World War
Their cricket careers were soon interrupted by the outbreak of the Second World War. They both joined the RAF police, and were sent to France with the British Expeditionary Force.[2] They both narrowly escaped being shot before being evacuated from Dunkirk, and later served in North Africa, Italy and Austria.[3] They were demobilised in 1946.[2]
Playing career
Alec Bedser founded England's eventual success. He toiled for hours without complaint, and never once looked annoyed at the missing of a catch, or at a rejected l.b.w. appeal. A great bowler, and an example to all who aspire to cricketing fame. The schoolboys who cheered him, and the elderly folk who applauded politely, all realised one thing. In Alec Bedser England had the best bowler Australia had seen for years, and friend and foe alike admitted the fact.
Alec Bedser's performances during war-time cricket matches were impressive: in games for the RAF he took 6 wickets for 27 runs (including a
In his first full season for Surrey, in 1946, he passed 100 wickets before July and established himself as a bowler in the
In Australia he was overbowled and exhausted and found that his natural in-swingers were liked by Australian leg-side batsmen like Sid Barnes. To counter this he gripped the ball across the seam like a spinner and the result was an in-swinging leg-break which would be known as Bedser's "Special Ball".[8] Don Bradman wrote "the ball with which Alec Bedser bowled me in the Adelaide Test Match was, I think, the finest ever to take my wicket. It must have come three-quarters of the way straight on my off-stump, then suddenly dipped in to pitch on the leg stump, only to turn off the pitch and hit the middle and off stumps."[6][9]
Meanwhile, his brother Eric became an all-rounder in the Surrey team, concentrating on his batting as the team also included spinners such as Jim Laker and Tony Lock.[6] The Bedser twins were difficult to tell apart, both 6'3" tall and just over 15 stone.[2] Playing for Surrey against an England representative team in 1946, they are reputed to have shared an over – Alec bowling the first three balls and then swapping with Eric fielding at mid-on for Eric to complete the over – without being detected by the batsman, Frank Woolley.[10]
In the
Bedser founded his success on accuracy of line and length, bowled at a medium pace from a short run-up, using his powerful shoulders and large hands to achieve sharp
Bedser was aged 36 by the first Test of the 1954–55 tour of Australia. He took 1 for 131 as seven catches were dropped off his bowling, including Arthur Morris (153) before he had scored – and England lost by an innings. He was subsequently diagnosed as suffering from shingles; despite recovering from this, and with a green wicket in the second Test that would have suited his bowling, he was dropped from the side, and watched as the younger Frank Tyson and Brian Statham bowled England to victory. He was recalled for one Test against South Africa in 1955.[6]
In a Test career extending from 1946 to 1955, Bedser played 51 matches and took 236 wickets (average 24.89), at the time the most wickets taken in Test cricket.
After retirement
After retiring from playing cricket, Bedser went into business with his brother. Among other business interests, they co-operated with Ronald Straker in a successful stationery firm, Straker-Bedser, which was later taken over by Ryman in 1977.[1]
Bedser served as a national team selector from 1962 to 1985, and was chairman of selectors from 1968 to 1981. He was on the board of selectors who controversially left
Outside of cricket, Bedser was a founding member during the 1970s of
He was appointed an Officer of the
Neither Alec nor his brother Eric ever married. They lived together in Woking until Eric's death in 2006. Sir Alec Bedser died in hospital in Woking[17] on 4 April 2010 after a short illness.[18] Among those to pay tribute to the more famous of the two brothers was former Prime Minister, well-known cricket lover and lifelong Surrey supporter John Major, who said: "Alec Bedser was one of the greatest medium-fast bowlers of all time. He was also one of the great thinkers about cricket and his wisdom was one of the great untapped resources of the modern game."[17] For three months following the death of Arthur McIntyre on 26 December 2009, Bedser was the oldest surviving England Test cricketer. On Bedser's death, that distinction passed to Reg Simpson.[6]
Career highlights
Tests
Test debut: vs
, 1946Last Test: vs
- Bedser's best Test batting score of 79 was made against Australia, Headingley, Leeds, 1948
- His best Test bowling figures for an innings, 7 for 44, came against Australia, at Trent Bridge, Nottingham, 1953
- He dismissed Don Bradman, widely regarded as the greatest batsman of all time, on six occasions. Only Hedley Verity (8 times) took Bradman's wicket more often. Bedser was included when Bradman selected a "dream team" shortly before his death in 2001; he was the only Englishman to be so honoured in the XI.[19]
References
- ^ doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/102513. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ a b c d e f "Alec Bedser – Cricketer of the Year 1947 (excerpt from Wisden Cricketer's Almanack 1947)". Cricinfo. Retrieved 21 May 2005.
- ^ Hughes, Simon (5 April 2010). "Simon Hughes: Alec Bedser was the Shane Warne of his time and tamer of Don Bradman". The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 12 April 2010. Retrieved 14 April 2010.
- ^ Kay, John (1951). Ashes to Hassett, A review of the M.C.C. tour of Australia, 1950–51. John Sherratt & Son. p. 16.
- ^ "1st Test: England v India at Lord's, Jun 22–25, 1946". espncricinfo. Retrieved 13 December 2011.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i "Sir Alec Bedser". The Times. No. 69914. London. 6 April 2010. p. 55.
- ^ Alec Bedser. ESPNCricinfo
- ^ Bedser, Alec (1959). May's Men in Australia. Stanley Paul. pp. 7–8.
- ISBN 978-0-0021-6236-4.
- ^ "Obituary: Sir Alec Bedser". BBC Sport. 5 April 2010. Retrieved 18 April 2023.
- ^ a b "Sir Alec Bedser". The Daily Telegraph. 5 April 2010. Archived from the original on 21 April 2010. Retrieved 26 April 2010.
- ^ "England's greatest XI betrays bygone era of dominance". The Sydney Morning Herald. 10 September 2004. Retrieved 18 April 2023.
- ISBN 978-1-9068-5010-4.
- ^ Hodgson, Derek (6 April 2010). "Sir Alec Bedser: Pillar of English cricket, as a player in the 1950s and later as a selector". The Independent. Archived from the original on 11 April 2010. Retrieved 26 April 2010.
- ^ Richards, Huw (5 April 2010). "Bowler Alec Bedser dies at 91". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 13 April 2010. Retrieved 26 April 2010.
- ^ Lowles, Nick (April 2001). "Blood money". Searchlight. Archived from the original on 6 December 2004. Retrieved 26 April 2010.
- ^ a b "England bowling great Bedser dies". BBC News. 4 April 2010. Archived from the original on 10 April 2010. Retrieved 14 April 2010.
- ^ Hoult, Nick (4 April 2010). "England bowler Sir Alec Bedser dies, aged 91". The Telegraph.
- ^ "Bradman's dream team revealed". BBC. 13 August 2001. Retrieved 13 March 2022.
External links
- Media related to Alec Bedser at Wikimedia Commons
- Alec Bedser at ESPNcricinfo
- Wisden Cricketer of the Year – 1947
- HowSTAT! statistical profile of Alec Bedser
- Alec Bedser at 90: Timeline, Cricinfo
- Obituary: Sir Alec Bedser, BBC Sport, 5 April 2010
- Sir Alec Bedser – The Daily Telegraph obituary, 5 April 2010
- 1947 film footage of Alec Bedser in Melbourne test match Archived 4 November 2011 at the Wayback Machine, British Pathe