UNLIKE his brother Alec, Eric Bedser fell short of international honours, though he was a good enough all-rounder to be chosen for a Test Trial match in 1950 and to be a regular member of the Surrey side from 1946 until 1961, years which embraced the seven in succession (1952-58) for which they were county champions.

In their way, the Bedsers had been a cricketing institution. Identical and inseparable, they usually dressed alike and had handwriting that was indistinguishable.

They served together in the RAF in the Second World War, in which they were in the evacuation from Dunkirk, and after that in North Africa, Italy and Austria.

When it seemed that Eric would not be able to get to Australia in 1946-47, his brother’s first MCC tour, a football pools promoter came up with the £500 which enabled him to catch up with the team by a later ship. On the next MCC tour to Australia, in 1950-51, Eric played in a first-class match against Tasmania when the official side had trouble with injuries.

All told, the brothers paid something like 30 visits to Australia together, the earlier ones when Alec was either playing for, or managing, the MCC side. Through their countless Australian friends they were as likely to be found staying on some substantial country property as playing golf on one of the great courses in Sydney or Melbourne, when they would hit the ball the same distance with the same club at the same trajectory.

The best way to tell them apart was to settle on the rounder of the two faces and then plump for Eric. Alec looked as though he had bowled the more overs of the two in the more gruelling conditions, as he had.

In conversation it could seem as though there was an echo in the room, as they expressed the same thoughts in the same words at the same pitch, and with the same strictures. When, as newcomers on the Surrey staff in 1938, they both bowled at the same medium pace, the decision was taken, on pragmatic grounds, for Eric to turn to off breaks, and it was with these that he took 833 first-class wickets at an average of 24.95.

With proper brotherly pride, Alec said that the Australians considered Eric to be a better bowler than their Surrey colleague, the illustrious Jim Laker. As it was, Laker could expect to be given the first chance from the better end when they were in the side together. “I used to bowl when Jim didn’t fancy it,” Eric would say; to which Alec would add “Yes, when Jim didn’t fancy it.”

They were just 21 when the Second World War broke out, having both played two first-class matches for Surrey, against Oxford and Cambridge, in which they took one wicket between them, F. G. Mann, then playing for Cambridge and later England’s captain, being leg-before to Eric.

The war over, Alec achieved greatness while Eric settled into the Surrey side, never quite taking 100 wickets in a season but reaching 1,000 runs six times. Of his 14,716 first-class runs (average 24.00) as many were made going in first as in the middle order. He was a strong driver, using his height and weight to good effect. In fact, he had a sound and solid all-round game. With hands the size of buckets he was a safe catcher, preferably close to the wicket. Neither he nor his brother were built for mobility.

From 1953 the Bedsers lived in the house in Woking built by their father, then a retired bricklayer, and some old school friends, and it was from there that Eric was taken into hospital after falling shortly before Christmas. With other friends they became partners in an office equipment business and then in an office cleaning and refuse disposal company. Both became President of Surrey, Eric in 1991. Neither was married. Alec survives his brother.

Eric Bedser, cricketer, was born on July 4, 1918. He died on May 24, 2006, aged 87.