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Today let us hear about the forgotten stories of an amazing leg spinner who took ten wickets in an innings several times in first-class cricket. His name is Subash Gupte, one of the best leg spinners India has ever produced. During a first-class career that stretched from 1947 to 1964, Gupte took 530 wickets (23.71). It included taking all ten for Bombay against Pakistan Services and Bahawalpur CC in 1954.
He was known as the googly master, which the great batsmen of that time found very difficult to play. Sir Garry Sobers and Jim Laker had said Gupte was the best leg spinner they had seen in their career. That was a big compliment for the diminutive player.
Gupte could turn the ball sharply and possessed two different googlies. The West Indian batsmen who toured India in 1958/9 acknowledged that Gupte could turn the ball even on glass.
Record books say that Subash Gupte made his debut in 1951–52, and from the next season onward, took over from Vinoo Mankad as India’s leading spinner. Gupte took 27 wickets in West Indies in 1952–53. At Kanpur in 1958–59, he took nine West Indian wickets in an innings for 102 runs and had Lance Gibbs – the only batsman he missed – dropped by wicketkeeper Naren Tamhane. He became the first Indian cricketer to take a ten-wicket haul in first-class cricket.
He had a successful tour of Pakistan in 1954–55, claiming 21 wickets in the five-Test series. Gupte became the second bowler after Vinoo Mankad to claim 100 Test wickets for India when he dismissed Rohan Kanhai in the Second Test of West Indies’ 1958–59 tour of India. He picked 34 wickets in four Tests, as many as the combined total of all other bowlers, during New Zealand’s 1955–56 India tour. During Pakistan’s 1960–61 tour of India, he appeared in the first three Tests and claimed eight wickets.
In August 1955, Gupte picked up his second ten-wicket haul in an innings (10/101), playing for Rishton in the final of the Lancashire League Worsley Cup against Todmorden. In June 1956, while playing against Accrington in the Lancashire League, he claimed two hat-tricks in one innings returning figures of 8/19 in 7.3 overs.
Commentators say that he was a big spinner of the ball, but his line and length remained immaculate. He gave the ball plenty of air, and his googly was most deceptive. His Test career took off in the West Indies in 1952-53, when he took 50 wickets at an average of 23.64. More impressive was that he took 27 wickets in Tests on perfect batting wickets and while bowling to the three Ws -Walcott, Worrell and Weekes. He was again the most successful bowler in Pakistan in 1954-55 with 21 wickets, and in the following season against New Zealand, he was quite unplayable finishing with 34 wickets (19.67), the Indian record until Chandrasekhar surpassed it 27 years later.
In 1956-57, he took a haul of 9 for 102 in an innings against West Indies at Kanpur. In 1959, he took 95 wickets (26.58) on the England tour.
In his last Test match, he took 4 for six off 18 balls at Kanpur against England. Dear readers, let us keep this figure in mind before we sign off today.
Shahnoor Wahid is the Associate Editor at The Business Post.
