Sir Alec Victor Bedser CBE (4 July 1918 – 4 April 2010) was an English professional cricketer, primarily a medium-fast bowler.

[1] They were spotted practising in the nets for Woking Cricket Club by Surrey coach Alan Peach, and he recruited them to the staff at the Oval in 1938.

In Alec Bedser England had the best bowler Australia had seen for years, and friend and foe alike admitted the fact.

[2] 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.

[5] 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.

[7] In Australia he was overbowled and exhausted and found that his natural in-swingers were liked by Australian leg-side batsmen like Sid Barnes.

[8] 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 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.

[6] Bedser founded his success on accuracy of line and length, bowled at a medium pace from a short run-up, using his powerful shoulders and large hands to achieve sharp inswing and surprising batsmen with occasional leg cutters.

He was on the board of selectors who controversially left Basil d'Oliveira out of the England team for 1968's tour of South Africa.

Bedser was made president of Surrey in 1987 in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the county's cricketing fortunes over the previous five decades.

[13] Outside of cricket, Bedser was a founding member during the 1970s of the Freedom Association, a right-wing pressure group that advocated the maintenance of sporting relations with South Africa during the apartheid era.

[14][15][16] He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1964, advanced to Commander (CBE) in 1982, and in 1997 he became the first (and still only) England bowler to be knighted for services to cricket.

[18] Among those to pay tribute to the more famous of the two brothers was former Prime Minister, well-known cricket lover and lifelong Surrey supporter John Major, who said: "Alec Bedser was one of the greatest medium-fast bowlers of all time.

"[17] For three months following the death of Arthur McIntyre on 26 December 2009, Bedser was the oldest surviving England Test cricketer.