Sir Alec Bedser, the first English bowler to be knighted (after Sir Francis Drake, that is), was 90 yesterday. His county, Surrey, saluted him with a birthday lunch at the Brit Oval, as MCC will do in the Long Room at Lord's next week.

Four of his former adversaries from Australia - Ken Archer, Alan Davidson, Neil Harvey and Arthur Morris - have been brought over to join in the celebrations, Morris, 86, being among those to pay affectionate tribute yesterday.

The old warrior himself rose to his feet, proudly if a little creakily, a monument to an age when cricket was a game not of audible confrontation and rampant commercialism but ingrained tranquillity. The Paul Collingwoods of the day, sterling professionals, were still firmly in the ranks.

The only living Test cricketer from any country older than Bedser is Arthur McIntyre, who pips him by 51 days and kept wicket to him for Surrey from 1947 until 1958. In Bedser's view there was nothing to choose, as wicketkeepers, between McIntyre and his great contemporary, Godfrey Evans. Sadly, Arthur was not up to taking part yesterday.

For some years after the Second World War, Bedser was the England attack, as tireless in an Adelaide heatwave as he was formidable in natural English conditions. Having finished playing, he had 20 non-stipendiary years as a Test selector, the last 13 of them as chairman.

When he talks of what his counterparts are paid today he finds derision, tinged perhaps by wistfulness, hard to resist. He has found it difficult to see much, if any, benefit in the countless changes that have reshaped the game. Vulgarity in all its forms is anathema to him and he has always stood up against it. The austere and orthodox lines on which he and his late twin brother, Eric, were brought up have been proof as much against a loose over as a careless deal or a lowering of standards.

Alec Bedser's success as one of England's finest bowlers came from a classical action, the stoutest of constitutions, hands large enough to spin as well as cut the ball, an aversion to being hit for four and an abiding interest in the theory and practice of bowling. No mention there of miles per hour, the modern fetish. It is interesting that he doubts whether he could have become the bowler he did had the front-foot no-ball law applied in his playing days, saying that whenever he had to worry about where his front foot landed, possibly because of a crumbling footmark, he became open-chested and less effective.

When polls were held in Australia a year or two ago to choose the best Australia team since Tests began, Morris was the opening batsman to pick up the most votes. In the 20 Tests in which they played against each other, Bedser got him out 17 times. But of the 106,118 balls Bedser bowled in first-class cricket, the one he recalls with the most satisfaction dismissed Don Bradman in Adelaide in February 1947.

Australia had been left with 25 minutes' batting at the end of the second day of the fourth Test and with two overs to go they lost their first wicket, that of Neil Harvey's older brother, Mervyn. Rather than using a nightwatchman, Bradman went in, just as his wife, Jessie, and young son, John, were leaving the ground to get ahead of the traffic. Out of view of the cricket, but knowing that his father had just gone in and hearing a roar from the crowd, John said: “There's Dad off the mark with a four.” In fact it was Dad having his hob knocked over by a ball from Bedser that swung in, pitched on the middle stump and hit the off - a fast leg break as much as a leg cutter.

That was the start of a lifelong friendship between Bedser and “The Don”, perpetuated by much vintage correspondence. More even than the 22 wickets that he had taken in his first two Tests (against India in the first postwar series of 1946) it gave Bedser an awareness of his full potential. Even then, though, it took a further three years of hard bowling for him to reach his best. His place in the pantheon was eventually assured when he took 69 wickets at 16.8 apiece in successive series (1950-51 and 1953) against Australia.

His bowling in Australia in the first of those series, with Evans standing up to him behind the stumps and in brilliant form, remains for me a particularly fond and vivid memory, having come to know them so well on the ship going out. Bedser's run-up was off ten paces (he marked it out with six long strides), his speed a yard or so short of Glenn McGrath's (although he might have hit the bat as hard) and his length consistently much fuller than is common today. His favourite captain was Freddie Brown, his least favourite Len Hutton, partly, I am sure, because of the seeming indifference with which Hutton discarded him in favour of Frank Tyson in Australia in 1954-55, when Bedser was not long over shingles but wanted to play as much as ever.

Bedser's more curmudgeonly side, although it helped to make him the bowler he was, was probably the reason for his never being given the emeritus coaching role he would have liked after he retired from selecting.

More is the pity when you think of all his experience and knowledge and expertise. On the other hand, greatly revered as he is and loveable to those who know him best, I am not sure he would necessarily have made a Mr Chips. Huddles, hollering and men with highlights in their hair are not for him. The game he loved and sweated at bears ever fewer similarities to today's. Strokes would be played against him now that Bradman never dreamt of.

Some outrageous flick by a diminutive Sri Lankan, taken from outside the off stump to a good-length ball and sent whistling past the square-leg umpire's ankles, was something he never had to contend with. The “you cheeky little devil” that it would have prompted would only have added to the fun. Bedser would have had to pay more for his wickets today, but they must still have come in abundance.

As a heavy cruiser, how he would have taken to being expected to plunge about the field like a performing seal is another matter. If he could not have done it, would we never have heard of him? It hardly bears thinking about when you realise all that he brought and gave to the game - but you cannot rule it out.

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