Subhashchandra Pandharinath "Fergie" Gupte (
Marathi
Marathi may refer to:
*Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India
**Marathi people (Uttar Pradesh), the Marathi people in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh
*Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Mar ...
: सुभाष गुप्ते) (; 11 December 1929 – 31 May 2002) was one of Test cricket's finest
spin bowlers.
Sir Garry Sobers, EAS Prasanna and
Jim Laker
James Charles Laker (9 February 1922 – 23 April 1986) was an English professional cricketer who played for Surrey County Cricket Club from 1946 to 1959 and represented England in 46 Test matches. He was born in Shipley, West Riding of Yorks ...
pronounced him the best
leg spin
Leg spin is a type of spin bowling in cricket. A bowler who uses this technique is called a leg spinner. Leg spinners bowl with their right-arm and a wrist spin action. The leg spinner's normal delivery is called a leg break, which spins fr ...
ner they had seen.
Gupte flighted and spun the ball sharply, and possessed two different
googlies. The West Indians who toured India in 1958/9 reckoned that Gupte could turn the ball on glass. His only drawback perhaps was that he tended to lose confidence when the batsmen attacked his bowling. In the domestic arena, Gupte played for
Bengal
Bengal ( ) is a Historical geography, historical geographical, ethnolinguistic and cultural term referring to a region in the Eastern South Asia, eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. The region of Benga ...
,
Bombay
Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial centre, financial capital and the list of cities i ...
and
Rajasthan
Rajasthan (; Literal translation, lit. 'Land of Kings') is a States and union territories of India, state in northwestern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the List of states and union territories of ...
in India and for
Rishton
Rishton is a town in the Hyndburn district of Lancashire, England, about west of Clayton-le-Moors and north east of Blackburn. It was an urban district from about 1894 to 1974. The population at the census of 2011 was 6,625.
History
It ...
,
Heywood and
Lancaster
Lancaster may refer to:
Lands and titles
*The County Palatine of Lancaster, a synonym for Lancashire
*Duchy of Lancaster, one of only two British royal duchies
*Duke of Lancaster
*Earl of Lancaster
*House of Lancaster, a British royal dynasty
...
in the UK. He received the
C. K. Nayudu Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000, the highest honour bestowed by
BCCI
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is the principal national governing body of the sport of cricket in India. Its headquarters are situated at the Cricket Centre in Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai. BCCI is the wealthiest governing body ...
on a former player.
Career
Gupte made his debut in 1951–52 and from the next season onward took over from
Vinoo Mankad
Mulvantrai Himmatlal "Vinoo" Mankad (; 12 April 1917 – 21 August 1978) was a former Captain of Indian cricket team and appeared in 44 Test matches for India between 1946 and 1959. He was best known for his world record setting opening partn ...
as India's leading spinner. He was nicknamed after the West Indian leg spinner
Wilfred Ferguson
Wilfred Ferguson (14 December 1917 – 23 February 1961) was a West Indian cricketer who played in eight Tests from 1947–48 to 1953–54. He played first-class cricket for Trinidad from 1943 to 1956.
Career
Ferguson was a leg-spin bowler and ...
. 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 wicket keeper
Naren Tamhane. In December 1954, while playing for Bombay against Pakistan Combined Services and Bahawalpur XI, he picked all ten wickets in an innings, returning figures of 10/78. In the process, he became the first Indian 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
Mulvantrai Himmatlal "Vinoo" Mankad (; 12 April 1917 – 21 August 1978) was a former Captain of Indian cricket team and appeared in 44 Test matches for India between 1946 and 1959. He was best known for his world record setting opening partn ...
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. He played his final Test series in Pakistan's
1960–61 tour of India when he appeared in 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
Rishton is a town in the Hyndburn district of Lancashire, England, about west of Clayton-le-Moors and north east of Blackburn. It was an urban district from about 1894 to 1974. The population at the census of 2011 was 6,625.
History
It ...
in the final of the
Lancashire League Worsley Cup against
Todmorden
Todmorden ( ; ) is a market town and civil parish in the Upper Calder Valley in Calderdale, West Yorkshire, England. It is north-east of Manchester, south-east of Burnley and west of Halifax, West Yorkshire, Halifax. In 2011, it had a popul ...
. In June 1956, while playing against
Accrington
Accrington is a town in the Hyndburn borough of Lancashire, England. It lies about east of Blackburn, west of Burnley, east of Preston, north of Manchester and is situated on the culverted River Hyndburn. Commonly abbreviated by locals to ...
in the Lancashire League, he claimed two
hat-tricks
A hat-trick or hat trick is the achievement of a generally positive feat three times in a match, or another achievement based on the number three.
Origin
The term first appeared in 1858 in cricket, to describe H. H. Stephenson taking three Wick ...
in one innings returning figures of 8/19 in 7.3 overs.
Career-ending controversy
Gupte's international career ended under controversial circumstances during
England's 1961–62 tour of India. During the Third Test at the
Feroz Shah Kotla
The Feroz Shah Kotla or Kotla ("fortress", "citadel") was a fortress built circa 1354 by Feroz Shah Tughlaq to house his version of Delhi called Firozabad.
A pristine polished sandstone Topra Ashokan pillar from the 3rd century BC rises from ...
in
Delhi
Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, but spread chiefly to the west, or beyond its Bank (geography ...
, the team stayed at
the Imperial hotel, where Gupte was housed in room number 7 along with teammate
A. G. Kripal Singh. During the stay, a receptionist at the hotel lodged a complaint with the India team manager against inmates of that room accusing them of calling her over after her shift finished. The pair denied the allegation, with Gupte, who was married at the time, explaining that Singh had merely called and asked for drinks to be brought up.
The matter was taken up by the authorities seriously before both were suspended from the team. Gupte later recollected that,
M. A. Chidambaram, the
President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
* President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment Film and television
*'' Præsident ...
of the
BCCI
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is the principal national governing body of the sport of cricket in India. Its headquarters are situated at the Cricket Centre in Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai. BCCI is the wealthiest governing body ...
during the time, did not give him a hearing in
Calcutta
Kolkata, also known as Calcutta (List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern ba ...
, the venue of the Fourth Test, as promised. The hearing was eventually held in
Madras
Chennai, also known as Madras ( its official name until 1996), is the capital and largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost state of India. It is located on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal. According to the 2011 Indian ce ...
where the
selectors and the BCCI met to pick the squad for the
tour of the Caribbean. Gupte was reprimanded by the BCCI secretary A. N. Ghosh for having not stopped Singh from making the call, to which he replied, "He is a big man. How can I stop him?". Both players were dropped from the squad for the tour and Gupte never played for India again. Gupte's 36-match Test career ended with 149 wickets at an
average
In colloquial, ordinary language, an average is a single number or value that best represents a set of data. The type of average taken as most typically representative of a list of numbers is the arithmetic mean the sum of the numbers divided by ...
of 29.55.
In 1981/82, a benefit match was held for Gupte in Sharjah. In 2002, he named Australia's
Neil Harvey
Robert Neil Harvey (born 8 October 1928) is an Australian former cricketer who was a member of the Australian cricket team between 1948 and 1963, playing in 79 Test matches. He was the vice-captain of the team from 1957 until his retirement. A ...
as the "toughest batsman" he had bowled to.
Personal life
Gupte's brother
Baloo
Baloo (from ''bhālū'' "bear") is a main fictional character featured in Rudyard Kipling's '' The Jungle Book'' from 1894 and '' The Second Jungle Book'' from 1895. Baloo, a sloth bear, is the strict teacher of the cubs of the Seeonee wolf pa ...
was also a leg spinner who played for India.
Gupte met Carol at an official function during his successful
1952–53 tour of the Caribbean with India, which he finished claiming 50 first-class wickets. They married in the late 1950s he moved to Trinidad where his finished his career as a cricketer in 1964. They had a son named Anil, and daughter named Carolyn.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gupte, Subhash
1929 births
2002 deaths
Cricketers from Mumbai
Bengal cricketers
Cricketers who have taken ten wickets in an innings
Commonwealth XI cricketers
Central Zone cricketers
India Test cricketers
Indian cricketers
Indian Universities cricketers
Indian emigrants to Trinidad and Tobago
Mumbai cricketers
Rajasthan cricketers
South Trinidad cricketers
Trinidad and Tobago cricketers