West Indies cricketer and Jamaican Senator Sir Frank Warrel at PEC. (Left) Bhushan Mahajan (standing extreme left), PEC Principal, GC Khanna (sitting 4th from right). (Express photo) AS THE Punjab Engineering College (PEC) marks its centenary celebrations through various programmes, the institute’s alumni continue to recall old memories. More nostalgia was invoked in the minds of the alumni during an online musical concert hosted by the 1973 Electrical Engineering batch alumnus Tejinder Singh Bedi.
Speaking with the Indian Express, Tejinder Singh Bedi says, “The PEC had witnessed the visit of one of the foremost West Indies cricketers of that time, Sir Frank Mortimer Maglinne Worrell, who was the then Jamaican Senator. He recalled, “Frank Worrel was invited by India/BCCI as a guest as the Windies toured India. Apparently, the Senator in him inspired him to visit a few selected universities/institutes and in this series he visited the relatively new upcoming campus of PU, besides our institute (PEC) around mid December, 1966. Our team had just beaten the Government College team of Chandigarh and [was] getting ready for the next league encounters with the other strong teams and the historic interaction and the photographic session with Frank Worrel organised by then Principal, GC Khanna in his office became a life long memory for all members of this team.”
Of these, a rare, stunning win of the Punjab University’s Cricketing Championship dates back to 1966-67. Besides the hard work of the then PEC cricket team, what made that win possible was the selection of Bishan Singh Bedi, former Indian cricketer, for his debut test match, to the West Indies-India Test Series.
“Bishan Singh Bedi was the captain of Punjab University Campus Team. He is from Amritsar. He had joined the Law College in PU Campus in 1966. Bishan Paji (as he was known) became the captain of the PU Campus Cricket Team. I believe that the fate of our institute’s team would have been different if Bishan Singh Bedi played for the PU Campus team,” Bhushan Mahajan, a former member of PEC Cricket team and 1969 batch of Aeronautical Engineering, said.
Mahajan, who is still popular among his batchmates as Bhushi, recalled, “How fulfilling for the team it was to have won the championship beating the most favoured and reigning contending teams of Hindu College, Amritsar and DAV College, Jalandhar in the semi finals and finals then! It was all the more remarkable that both these teams had a good number of players playing for the State’s Ranji Trophy team and it was no wonder that the institute witnessed cricket euphoria for a long time thereafter.”
- The Indian Express website has been rated GREEN for its credibility and trustworthiness by Newsguard, a global service that rates news sources for their journalistic standards.
