ALEC BEDSER

'Sir Alec Victor Bedser', CBE, (born July 4 1918) was a professional English cricketer, chairman of selectors for the English national cricket team, and president of Surrey County Cricket Club, and is widely regarded as one of the greatest English cricketers of the 20th century.
He was an outstanding right-arm fast bowler for Surrey and England in a first-class playing career that spanned twenty-one years, taking an incredible 1924 first-class wickets in 485 matches during this time.

Contents

Early life and career

Main career

Post-playing career

Teams

International

English county

Career highlights

Tests

References

External links

Early life and career

Bedser was born in Reading, Berkshire, just minutes after identical twin brother Eric, his father stationed there with the Royal Air Force. Within six months the Bedser family moved to Woking where at the age of seven, both Alec and Eric played their first organised cricket, and over the next decade played together for Monument Hill School and Woking Cricket Club.
A career in law beckoned for the twins as they joined a local firm of solicitors. After being spotted practicing in the nets for Woking Cricket Club by Surrey coach Alan Peach, they were recruited to the staff at The Oval in 1938. A year later both made their first-class debuts for the first team. Their early cricketing careers were cut short though as in 1939, as both were called up by the RAF to serve in World War II, where they saw action at Dunkirk, North Africa, Italy and Austria, and the pair were demobilised in 1946.

Main career

Alec had impressed during war-time cricket matches; in games for the British RAF, he took figures of 6 for 27 (including a hat-trick) against the West Indies, and 9 for 36 against a Metropolitan Police team, featuring another hat-trick.
In his first full county season for Surrey, in 1946, he passed 100 wickets by July and established himself in the England Test team. In each of his first two Tests, against the travelling Indians, he took eleven wickets, match figures of 11 for 139 in his debut at Lord's and 11 for 96 in the next game at Manchester.
In 1947 Bedser was chosen as a Wisden Cricketer of the Year, recognising the amazing achievements he'd made for Surrey and England in 1946, the year after WWII had ended.
He won selection on the ensuing Ashes tour of Australia and for the better part of the next decade "carried England's bowling attack" [1].
In 1953, at the age of 35, Bedser took 39 wickets at the average 17.48 at home to Australia, including career-best match figures of 14 for 99 in the Nottingham Test, helping England regain the Ashes urn that year and demonstrating his longevity in a sport where many other fast bowlers have retired by that age.
In a Test career that went from 1946 to 1955, Bedser played 51 matches, taking 236 wickets at an average of 24.89. During this time he was the spearhead of an English national team still recovering from the war, cementing his place in history in the mind's of England's cricket followers.
His entire first-class career spanned 485 matches, in which he helped Surrey to eight County Championships between 1950 and 1958, and took 100 wickets in a county season eleven times, figures that ranks him favourably amongst the game's greats. He took five or more wickets in an innings 96 times, and ten wickets or more in a match 16 times.

Post-playing career

After retiring from playing cricket in 1960, at the age of 42, Bedser served as a national team selector for twenty-three years, acting as chairman of selectors between 1963 and 1981. In addition, Bedser managed two England overseas tours, and was made president of Surrey in 1997, recognition of his outstanding contribution to the county's cricketing fortunes over the previous five decades.
In October 2004 he was selected in 'England's Greatest Post-War XI' by The Wisden Cricketer, an authoritative monthly cricket magazine.
Bedser was knighted for his services to cricket in 1996.

Teams

International

★ England

English county

★ Surrey

Career highlights

Tests

Test Debut: vs India, Lord's, 1946

Last Test: vs South Africa, Manchester, 1955

★ Bedser's best Test batting score of 79 was made against Australia, Leeds, 1948

★ His best Test bowling figures of 7 for 44 came against Australia, Nottingham, 1953

References

★ Alec Bedser - Cricketer of the Year 1947 (Accessed 21 May 2005) (Excerpt from ''Wisden Cricketer's Almanack 1947'')

External links

★ Cricinfo player profile of Alec Bedser

★ HowSTAT! statistical profile of Alec Bedser