Gavaskar better than Tendulkar: Spin greats

KOLKATA: It was yesterday once more as spin legends Bishan Singh Bedi, Erapalli Prasanna and BS Chandrasekhar went down memory lane during a chat show organized to commemorate 150 years of Eden Gardens on Wednesday.
The three had their own tales to narrate but they all picked Gary Sobers as the greatest batsman they had bowled to.
"Although England's Tom Graveney was perhaps technically the most perfect batsman, Sir Garfield Sobers was simply the best," Prasanna said.
As for Chandrasekhar, he "always found England's Ken Barrington very difficult to dismiss but Sobers will always remain the greatest."
Bedi summed it up well. "See players like Sobers and Bradman are in a different league. They are just class apart.
We won't see another Sobers or Bradman in the game," he said.
And all three agreed that Sunil Gavaskar was a better batsman than Sachin Tendulkar. "Sunny would play us in the nets and go out and face the fierce West Indian and Australian pace attack without even a helmet," Prasanna said.
"For us the original Little Master is the best. He was a complete batsman," Bedi added.
Talking about Indian captains, Bedi was all praise for Mansur Ali Khan 'Tiger' Pataudi.
"Tiger was at least 100 years ahead of his time. He was a very proud Indian and he inculcated an Indianness in the dressing room. As captain, Tiger was always very positive and believed there was no harm in losing while going for victory."
Quite inevitably, Sourav Ganguly - another very successful Indian captain - came into the discussion. Bedi, who disapproved the exaggerated display of on-field emotions by modern cricketers, felt Ganguly's act of taking off his shirt after the NatWest Trophy win at Lord's in 2002 was 'not gentlemanly'.