'Anywhere for cricket'

Menon speaks movingly of Bedi’s generosity to young cricketers. The former India captain regularly takes youngsters on educative tours of England, raising funds and arranging matches for them himself. Each time Menon himself visited his subject, he met cricketers from the mofussil staying at Bedi’s home. This nobility of spirit manifested itself early. An old teacher of Bedi’s told Menon that as a schoolboy he was often seen wheeling around a disabled classmate. “Former players have reduced ‘giving back to the game’ to a cliché,” writes Menon, “Bedi has rescued the cliché and restored it to its original import.”