The Bedser Twins

Alec Bedser 1918-2010

After the Second World War, Alec became a hugely successful fast medium bowler for England,

Alec Bedser's performances during war-time cricket matches were impressive: in games for the RAF he took 6 wickets for 27 runs (including a hat-trick) against the West Indies and 9 for 36, featuring another hat-trick, against a Metropolitan Police team.

In his first full season for Surrey, in 1946, he passed 100 wickets before July and established himself as a bowler in the England Test team. In each of his first two Tests, against the visiting Indians, he took eleven wickets: 11 for 139 in his début at Lord's, including 7 in the first innings, and 11 for 96 in the next game at Old Trafford, Manchester. His amazing season resulted in his nomination as a Wisden Cricketer of the Year for 1947. He was selected for the 1946-47 Ashes series in Australia and for most of the next decade "carried England's bowling attack".

In Australia he was overbowled and exhausted and found that his natural in-swingers were liked by Australian leg-side batsmen like Sid Barnes. To counter this he gripped the ball across the seam like a spinner and the result was an in-swinging leg-break which would be known as Bedser's "Special Ball".Don Bradman wrote "the ball with which Alec Bedser bowled me in the Adelaide Test Match was, I think, the finest ever to take my wicket."

In the 1950-51 Ashes series, Alec began his dominance of Australian batsmen, taking 30 wickets at an average of 16.06 and 10 for 105 in the Fifth Test when he ended Australia's unbeaten run of 26 Tests since 1938. In 1953 at 35, an age by which many fast bowlers have retired from first-class cricket, Bedser demonstrated his longevity by helping England regain the Ashes. He took 39 wickets at an average of 17.48 at home to Australia, including career-best match figures of 14 for 99 in the Nottingham Test.

In a Test career extending from 1946 to 1955, Bedser played 51 matches and took 236 wickets (average 24.89), at the time the most wickets taken in Test cricket. He was England's post-war bowling spearhead. He had 14 new ball partners, and took five wickets in an innings 15 times and ten wickets in a match 5 times. His entire first-class career spanned 485 matches, in which he helped Surrey to eight County Championships between 1950 and 1958.

Bedser occasionally captained the side in place of Stuart Surridge or Peter May. He took 100 wickets in a county season eleven times, figures that place him high 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. Bedser hung up his bat in 1960 before moving on to become chairman of the test selectors, England manager and President of Surrey County Cricket Club. In 1997 a knighthood followed an OBE and CBE. Alec loved his golf and was a Past President of West Hill.

Like his brother Alec never maried and they lived together in the house that they built in Woking with their father in 1953 in Woking, Alec died in 2010.