Bishan Singh Bedi Quits Delhi Cricket Body, Wants His Name Removed From Kotla Stand

Legendary left-arm spinner and former India captain, Bishan Singh Bedi, who captained Delhi to two Ranji Trophy titles in the late 1970s, has asked the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) to immediately remove his name associated with a stand the Ferozeshah Kotla Stadium. He has also renounced his membership of the DDCA.

Former India captain Bedi’s decision comes just six days before a six-foot statue of late Arun Jaitley, a former DDCA president and father of current president Rohan Jaitley, is to be installed on his 68th birth anniversary inside the Arun Jaitley Stadium. The stadium was renamed from Ferozeshah Kotla Stadium to Arun Jaitley Stadium soon after his death on August 24 last year. Bedi has cited this as one of the main reasons for his disenchantment.

“I pride myself as a man of immense tolerance and patience, but all that, I’m afraid, is running out. DDCA has truly tested me and forced me to take this drastic action. So, Mr President, I request you to remove my name from the stand named after me with immediate effect. Also, I hereby renounce my DDCA membership. I’ve taken this decision with sufficient deliberations,” Bedi, 74, wrote in an 841-word long letter emailed to Rohan late on Tuesday night, and now made public.

“Late Arun Jaitley, I’m told, was an able politician. So, it’s the Parliament and not a cricket stadium which needs to remember him for posterity. He might have been a good cricket fan too, but his dalliance with cricket administration was dubious and left much to be desired. This is not a rhetorical assessment, but a factual appraisal of his time at the DDCA. Take my word, failures don’t need to be celebrated with plaques and busts. They need to be forgotten,” Bedi wrote in his email.

Bedi’s real disagreement was with the “corruption and misappropriation of funds” at the DDCA led by Jaitley.

“I can’t be part of a stadium which has got its priorities so grossly wrong and where administrators get precedence over cricketers. Please bring down my name from the stand with immediate effect. You needn’t worry about me or my legacy. God Almighty has been very kind to me to keep me alive with my cricketing convictions. I don’t wish my strength of character to be maligned by my silence or association to this unsporting act,” he said.

As I observe now, even in your leadership DDCA’s court culture of fawning obeisance continues,” he wrote. “Now I gather a statue of late Arun Jaitley is going to be installed at the Kotla. I’m not at all enamoured with the thought of a statue of Arun Jaitley coming up at Kotla.”

Bedi, a former manager of the Indian team, also pointed out that statues at stadiums are installed of legendary players.