“Fergie” Gupte is no more
V Ramnarayan01-Jun-2002″Fergie” Gupte is no more. Those of us who grew up watchingcricket in the 50s remember the seeming effortlessness of hisaction and the mesmeric influence he had on batsmen despite histiny, frail physique. Subhash Gupte had a neat little action,and, unless my memory tricks me, he had the palms of his handspointing towards him even as his arms went up during his predelivery stride.For a leg-spinner, Gupta had a remarkably high arm action, andhis flight, while tantalising and deceptive, was rarelyextravagant. Like all great spinners, he had the uncanny knack ofinducing an optical illusion in batsmen of the ball heading for acertain spot on the pitch and invariably dropping just short ofthat. His control was perhaps unmatched by leg-spinners of mosteras, though his admirer and successor for a mere two Tests, V VKumar, came close to it, as did Shane Warne.My first memory of Gupte is from the Madras Test against NewZealand in January 1956, when his nine wickets in the match werecompletely overshadowed by the world-record opening partnershipbetween Vinoo Mankad and Pankaj Roy. Yet he made an instantimpact on young spectators with his buttoned-down sleevesfluttering in the breeze and the clinical precision of hisbowling.For weeks on end, countless boys around India tried to bowl legbreaks and googlies in the Gupte manner, all with slightlydifferent results, no doubt a result of the complete absence offull-sleeved shirts in their wardrobes. The walk from school tobus-stop and bus-stop to home now became a succession of maidenovers and devastating googlies so that England or the West Indieswere reduced to two-digit totals for the loss of all theirwhimpering batsmen. (The love affair with Gupte continued throughthe next Test at Madras against Ian Johnson’s Australians, butgiven a boy’s natural inclinations, it was not long before GhulamAhmed took over, bringing with him a propensity to walk tallerand swing the arms in an imposing swagger.)Conversations with two great cricketers come to mind as I try toremember the little details of the Gupte magic. The first waswith Neil Harvey on a visit to Chennai during the 1998-99 ChennaiTest between India and Australia. Harvey remembered how he wentafter the little leg-spinner after his captain Richie Benaud hadleft a newspaper clipping under his breakfast plate at Bombay onthe morning of the Test match there in 1960. According to theleft-hander, the story had described what Gupte would do to him,and it had not been flattering. The message from the captain wasclear: it was Harvey’s job to hit Gupte out of the attack.Harvey recalled accomplishing his mission successfully. To hisastonishment and the utter delight of his team, the selectorsdropped the little leg-spinner for the next Test, even thoughAustralia had been in all sorts of trouble against him before theHarvey assault.I also had the privilege of listening to Sir Gary Sobers’ viewson Gupte at the Madras Cricket Club a couple of years later.Sobers’ evaluation of Gupte as a greater bowler than Shane Warneis by now common knowledge. After explaining to the smallaudience why he thought so, he turned to me – to my completesurprise – and asked who, in my opinion, was the next best Indianleg-spinner of the orthodox variety. Was it Baloo Gupte, hewondered. I pointed to the sprightly young fellow of 65 summerssitting just a few yards away.Why did I consider V V Kumar superior to other leg-spinners, thegreat West Indian persisted. "Because, not only did he bamboozlebatsmen with his flight and variety, he was also the mostaccurate wrist-spinner around," I told him. "Yes, I can see that.The old chap still lands it on a perfect length in the nets athis coaching camp," agreed Sir Gary, who had been flown in by theMAC Spin Academy for a brief stint. Sobers’ assessment of Gupteas the finest exponent of his craft will, given his stature,perhaps live on as the most famous eulogy of a great spinner.