Subhash Gupte
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The finest wrist spinner
Subhash Gupte, the Indian leg-break bowler was considered by no less an authority than Sir Garry Sobers to be the finest wrist spinner he ever batted against.
This assessment is all the more striking when it is remembered that Sobers fought many a duel against Richie Benaud. Moreover, in his recent autobiography Sobers goes even further, judging Gupte to have been a better bowler than Shane Warne.
Gupte, however, played in only 36 Tests, and rarely enjoyed the luxury of belonging to a dominant batting side which left him plenty of runs to bowl against. He performed against formidable opponents on perfect batting wickets, under captains who sometimes failed to set sensible fields and with fielders who were often unreliable.
Even so, after only 18 Tests he had 10 times taken five or more wickets in an innings - a feat he achieved only twice more in the latter part of his career. It took him only 22 Tests to reach the mark of 100 Test wickets. Such was his early dominance that Mihir Bose, in his History of Indian Cricket, refers to the period 1953 to 1956 as "The Age of Gupte".
Yet his frail, spidery physique lent itself to a classical high-armed action, the only oddity in which was a curious skip as he released the ball. He relished long spells, and never suffered from sore fingers, being very much a wrist rather than a finger spinner, with the ability to turn the ball on even the best batting wickets.
His bowling combined unvarying accuracy of line and length with every permutation of flight and spin. Shane Warne, Sobers points out, is far flatter through the air than Gupte; in addition Gupte mastered not only leg break and top-spin, but also two different types of googly, one bowled with a lower arm. As he would also bowl the occasional leg break with a lower arm, batsmen were none the wiser.
Early life and career
Subhashchandra Pandharinath Gupte, born in Bombay on December 11 1929, learned his cricket alongside thousands of other ordinary Indians in Shiva ji Park.
He first created a stir playing for Bombay University in 1947-48, and the next season played for Bombay in the Ranji Trophy. But his first Test, against England at Calcutta in December 1951, was inauspicious; in a dull draw he took no wickets and was dropped.
It was therefore with some trepidation that the Indian selectors picked Gupte for the tour of the West Indies early in 1953. "The Three Ws" - Frank Worrell, Everton Weekes and Clyde Walcott - were then at the height of their powers.
Inevitably, they scored highly against the Indians. But they could not altogether master Gupte, who took 27 wickets in the Tests at a respectable 29.22 apiece. In all first class matches he claimed 50 wickets, more than twice as many as anyone else, and nearly half the 107 that fell to bowlers.
The Indian community in the West Indies welcomed the tourists with particular enthusiasm, and at the first match in San Fernando, Trinidad, Gupte met his future wife Carol, who had been taken to the game by her Indian father. She watched entranced as Gupte took six for 29.
In 1955-56, Gupte reached his peak, taking 34 wickets in a home series against New Zealand. Towards the end of 1956, however, he had a harder time against the Australians, hungry for success after their humiliation at Laker's hands in England. In particular, Neil Harvey put Gupte to the sword.
When they first played against each other, Harvey was unable to spot the googly; he simply guessed that he would get one first ball, and dispatched it to the boundary. Yet Gupte kept his head under the onslaught, and the eight wickets he took in the three-match series were purchased at the by no means prodigal expense of 32.87 apiece.
Over the two next years India played no Test cricket. When the West Indies visited India at the end of 1958, Gupte returned the remarkable analysis of nine for 102 in the first innings of the second Test at Kanpur; he would have taken all 10 if the last man had not been dropped by the wicket-keeper.
When India toured England in 1959 Gupte, with 95 victims, was the leading wicket-taker. But in a hot summer, which should have suited him, he disappointed in the Tests, his 17 wickets costing 34.64 each. Uncharacteristically, he rather lost heart, as chance after chance went down in the field.
After three Tests against Pakistan in 1960-61, Gupte was replaced in the Indian side by his younger brother Baloo. Yet he was back at the end of 1961, and against England at Kanpur showed that he had lost none of his skill as he took five for 90, including a spell of four for six in 18 balls.
Gupte was still only 32, and still seemed to have a long international career in front of him. But in the next Test at Delhi he got into trouble after a hotel receptionist complained of being harassed over the telephone by one of the Indian players. The call in question was traced to the room which he shared with Amritsar Kripal Singh.
Gupte, in fact, was wholly innocent. Riled, though, by the suggestion that he should have prevented Kripal Singh from bothering the receptionist, he reacted by giving a member of the Indian Board of Control the rough side of his tongue. He was informed that he would not be selected for the forthcoming tour of the West Indies. He never represented India again.
Altogether Gupte played in 115 first-class matches, taking 530 wickets at an average of 23.71. His best performance was in 1954-55, when he claimed all ten wickets for 78 for Bombay against Pakistan Services and Bahawalpur.
In Test matches he finished with 149 wickets at a cost of 29.55 each. As a batsman he rarely reached double figures, averaging 6.31 in Tests and 8.18 over his career.
He played for Rishton in the Lancashire League between 1954 and 1957; for Heywood in the Central Lancashire League in 1958; and for Lancaster in the Northern League in 1960 and 1961. Representing Rishton against Accrington in 1956, he claimed two hat-tricks in one innings.
Gupte was a jovial character, well liked in the game, though never afraid to speak his mind. After the end of his Test career he retired with his wife to her native Trinidad, where they brought up their two children. He died on May 31 2002 at Port-of-Spain.
