Pras, Bish & Chandra

Aussie cricket great IAN CHAPPELL tells K eRSI MeHeRHOMJI about his trysts with India’s magnificent spin trio

greet him with “It was an arm ball, Bish.” He immediately laughs and wags his finger, “No, no Ian, it was the one that spins from leg to off.” This is a response to Bish getting me out for 99 in Calcutta [now Kolkata] in the fourth Test of 1969-70. To this day I’m convinced it was an arm-ball that I was looking to turn into the leg-side for a single to reach my century. However, it turned ever so slightly, found the edge and I was caught at first slip.

It was always a great battle facing the duo of Prasanna and Bedi and you couldn’t afford to ‘switch off’ even for one delivery.

had so much trouble playing you.”

It was a fascinating discussion and one that any budding young spinner should have the privilege of hearing.

After I had got to know Pras better during our playing days, I said to him over a dressing room beer, “You’ve got a string tied to that ball and just as I’m about to get to the pitch of the delivery, you tug on the string.” He just laughed and then smiled knowingly.

It was one of the great joys of my cricketing life to do battle with Erapalli Prasanna.

The difference between Bishan (Bish) Bedi and Prasanna in India was the former often resorted to trying to bore you out while the latter always attempted to bowl you out. Bish would often place a strong off-side field and bowl at off-stump turning away, making it difficult to score. I felt there were times when he resorted to this ploy too quickly.

When I faced him in Australia during the World X1 series he attacked more and used flight cleverly. At the SCG he bowled me with a beautifully flighted delivery that I thought I had covered all the way and was in the process of driving wide off mid-on. It drifted late and I completely missed it. When years later I heard the great Australian leg-spinner Bill ‘Tiger’ O’Reilly talk about the “right-hand batsman’s blind spot,” I immediately cast my mind back to that delivery from Bish.

Whenever Bedi and I met these days I

In the 1969-70 series between India and Australia, Bhagwat Chandrasekhar didn’t play any of the Tests. I always thought that was a selection blunder and was perhaps the result of him having a poor tour of Australia in 1967-68. There’s no doubt Chandra was easier to cope with in Australia on pitches that were more even in bounce. His most difficult delivery to cope was the wrong-un which used to bounce quite steeply in Australia. There was always the danger of being caught in the leg-trap.

On Indian pitches which were more uneven in bounce he would’ve been a handful. I can image him on the less-thantrue surfaces of Delhi and Madras [now Chennai] being a real handful but luckily for us the selectors seemed to prefer the allround capabilities of Venkat.

The other important aspect of the Indian triumvirate was the captaincy of M A K (Tiger) Pataudi. ‘Tiger’ understood spin bowling and he knew the individual bowlers well and got the best out of them.

The combination of threatening spin bowlers well captained, made batting a challenge, but one that I enjoyed greatly.