Captain Contractor agrees with Sobers on Subhash Gupte

708 vs 149: Looks like a crazy comparison. But when Garry Sobers talks, the cricketing world listens. Numbers may be a good indicator of success but can’t measure skill, believes the West Indian legend.

Subhash Gupte’s 149 wickets dwarfs in comparison to Shane Warne’s 708 but Sobers believes Gupte, who played for India during the 1950s, was a better leg-spinner than Warne. Sobers made the assessment in a new book titled In a League of Their Own: 100 Cricket Legends Select Their World XI, where he also delivered a jab at Geoff Boycott’s batting style.

“Someone who is called great from today’s game is Shane Warne, but I have got my reservations about Shane,” Sobers wrote in the book’s foreword.

Sobers adds, “To me, Warne is a great turner of the ball. I like his aggressive attitude, I love the way he attacks batsmen and I give him 100% for that as not enough spinners bowl with that approach, but in my estimation Gupte was a better leg-spinner.”
Gupte played 36 Tests from 1951 to 1961 and finished with 149 wickets. He dismissed Sobers once in five Tests.

Those who have seen Gupte have no hesitation in agreeing with Sobers. “You can’t really understand his ability purely based on numbers,” said Gupte’s former teammate and captain Nari Contractor.

“Theoretically speaking, you should multiply the number of wickets Subhash took with the number of Tests he would have played had he been around now. Warne is a great bowler but he was backed by a great fielding side. Subhash had quite a few catches dropped,” added Contractor.

When it came to the art of leg-spin, Contractor said Gupte was by far the complete leg-spinner India ever had. “He had great control and could spin the ball on any surface. He would spin the ball on the true wickets of West Indies and very few could do that.”

Chandu Borde, another Gupte contemporary, could not agree more. “He could land his leg-spin, flipper and googly on the same spot. I, being a leg-spinner myself,  know how difficult it is control line and length. He was so good that it was difficult for the captain to give me the ball,” said Borde.

“Gupte would have been a great success in limited-overs cricket. He was very accurate. And that’s why Sobers, a very aggressive batsman, says Gupte was a great bowler,” Contractor added.

“Many of the top batsmen could not read his googly, I have seen many leave the ball and lose their middle or leg.

“I will pick his nine-wicket haul against the West Indies at Kanpur the best spell I have seen. The wicket was a batsman’s paradise, not the under-prepared wicket which the spinners thrive on nowadays,” Borde recollects.

Against the West Indies line-up which included Sobers, Rohan Kanhai, Conrad Hunte and Basil Butcher, Gupte’s figures in the first innings of the 1958 Test read 34.3-11-102-9.