Bhagwat Chandrasekhar

Bhagwat Subramanya Chandrasekhar (born May 17, 1945 in Mysore) is a former Indian cricketer who specialised in leg spin. Considered amongst the top echelon of leg-spinners, Chandrasekhar along with E.A.S. Prasanna, Bishen Singh Bedi and Srinivasaraghavan Venkataraghavan constituted theIndian spin quartet that dominated spin bowling in the 1960s and 1970s. 

Born and educated in the city of Mysore, Chandrasekhar was infatuated with cricket from a very early age. Overcoming a polio attack which withered his right wrist as a child, so that he always used his left arm for throwing, he became one of the most successful leg spin bowlers in cricket history.

An unorthodox bowler with an unusually long run-up, Chandrasekhar played in 58 Test matches, and collected 242 wickets in his career. He often bowled at medium pace, substituting his leg break, for he was not a big turner of the ball, for his googly or flipper to much success. He considered Englishman Ken Barrington as the hardest batsman to bowl to.

Making his Test debut against England at Bombay in 1964, his most memorable performance was against England at The Oval on August 23, 1971 where he took six wickets for 38 runs, and helped India to a series win. He often said that he was never able to tell what was going to happen when he bowled and he was as likely to bowl a mediocre ball than a good ball. Of the spin quartet, he was the most likely to bowl an unplayable delivery, and it brought India many laurels including its first victory in Australia.

He was named as a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1972 and won the Wisden's "Best bowling performance of the century" award in 2002, for his 6 wickets for 38 runs against England at the Oval in 1971. 

Chandrasekhar had minimal batting skills, finishing with an average of 4 and the highest percentage of ducks in Test history. He was given a special Gray-Nicholls bat during the 1977-78 Australian tour with a hole in it to commemorate the four ducks he scored. He has 23 ducks to his credit.

He also holds the dubious record of scoring fewer runs (167) off his bat than wickets (242) taken in Test Cricket. The only other cricketer to have achieved this 'record' over a significant Test career is Chris Martin.

Attributed to him is a famous umpire-directed quote, made during a day of bad decisions in New Zealand after several of his LBW appeals were given not-out: "I know he is bowled, but is he out?"