Is Harbhajan Singh one of the greatest fingerspinners ever ?

[Uppercut]

I'd love to hear your "argument" for why Bhajji is not comparable to Prasanna or Bedi.

Just throwing it out there....hasn't Bhajji played in an era which has been generally harder for bowlers??

Because you're DENIGRATING THE GREATS OF THE GAME!!!111!!! and this shows that you obviously know nothing about cricket.

 

[G.I.Joe]

Am I the only one who doesn't get the Bedi love? Sure, he tip toed in like a ballerina and flighted the ball and gave it wonderful loop and all that crap, but then I wouldn't claim Yuvraj is a better Test batsman than Ganguly just because he looks better playing his shots.

 

[Richard]

Bedi was a bloody superb bowler in home conditions though, same as Harbhajan.

I honestly wouldn't remotely want to make the call on which was better, but Bedi on a turning deck was a wonderful bowler. He certainly wasn't a style-over-substance merchant.

 

[silentstriker]

Am I the only one who doesn't get the Bedi love? Sure, he tip toed in like a ballerina and flighted the ball and gave it wonderful loop and all that crap, but then I wouldn't claim Yuvraj is a better Test batsman than Ganguly just because he looks better playing his shots.

4th Innings. India. Check out his record. Bloody amazing.

When I make an all time side, I always put Bedi in as the home spinner. I would not have him overseas.

 

[aussie]

he was supposed to be an exponent of the arm ball. this would start from outside the off stump, like an offspinner, but swing into the batsman instead of going away, pitch in line with the off and middle and spin towards first slip. prasanna once demonstrated on tv about how the grip makes all the difference. he seemed to cup the ball in his palm a little more to get this delivery bowled. he was of the opinion that it would be impossible to make the ball spin away too much for an off spinner without straightening the arm, essentially claiming most of the doosras are chucked in.

Interesting..

 

[G.I.Joe]

4th Innings. India. Check out his record. Bloody amazing.

When I make an all time side, I always put Bedi in as the home spinner. I would not have him overseas.

To bring that average back to the career average, his first innings average would have to be pretty crap, wouldn't it?


Seriously, given the pretty similar averages, if you're looking at your spinner to win you matches, why pick the guy who strikes at one wicket every 80 balls (Bedi) ahead of the 3 guys who strike at a wicket every 65 balls (Chandra, Kumble, Harbhajan)? Fair enough if you're picking horses for courses, bit of an insult to Bedi actually benching him on every tour

 

[aussie]

4th Innings. India. Check out his record. Bloody amazing.

When I make an all time side, I always put Bedi in as the home spinner. I would not have him overseas.

Hmm for me when picking an IND ATXI, i unfortunately have to leave Bedi out TBH. For hypotetical home test:

Gavaskar
Sehwag/Mankad
Dravid (c)
Tendulkar
Hazare
Viswanath/Mankad
Engineer
Kapil Dev
Khan/Srinath
Prasanna
Gupte

Bedi misses out since Mankad is already their bowling left-arm spin, along with the off & legspin of Prasanna & Gupte. Along with the 2 quicks, gives a solid balance & variety in bowling attack.

 

[Uppercut]

4th Innings. India. Check out his record. Bloody amazing.

When I make an all time side, I always put Bedi in as the home spinner. I would not have him overseas.

Ahead of Kumble??

 

[Richard]

On a typical Indian deck, I'd have both Kumble and Bedi without a backward glance. And Subhash Gupte before either of them as well.

Overseas if I was talking spinners only I'd have Gupte then Chandra. Possibly would have those two then Kapil and Srinath as the lone seamers.

 

[Richard]

4th Innings. India. Check out his record. Bloody amazing.

Not at all bad in the third-innings in India either.

 

[Uppercut]

Why the Gupte love?

 

[G.I.Joe]

Sobers reckons he was better than Warne, or something like that.

 

[Richard]

Until CW I'd never even heard of him - then I read SJS' posts on him. I'm utterly amazed that he's barely even mentioned these days while Bedi, Chandra and Prasanna (and even Venkat) are much better-known.

Personally I've little doubt Gupte was India's best-ever spin bowler.

And BTW though Sobers is probably exaggerating to call him better than Warne, there's no doubt Sobers' words are a part of a fair assessment of how good he was. The most significant thing that weighs in to my mind though is the fact that his bowling average is not an accurate reflection of how well he bowled, because catching in his day was often inept.

 

[Uppercut]

Sobers reckons he was better than Warne, or something like that.

That's quite surprising, because he has a poor record against the West Indies.

 

[aussie]

Why the Gupte love?

Based on all i've read about him i'd say he was better pure leg-spinner than Kumble. He played in a era of IND cricket where unlike Kumble IND weren't a force at home (given that IND batting weren't a force in 50s & 60s).

Thus he did a job as a lone ranger most of time & to average 29 in such a weak team is excellent.

Plus you have the fact that Gary Sobers rating him as the best spinner he ever faced, which helps to add to the CV...

 

[Uppercut]

Rich, are New Zealand during the 1950s one of the sides you count as minnows?

 

[G.I.Joe]

That's quite surprising, because he has a poor record against the West Indies.

Warne was crap against India too I don't know how much emphasis to place on Sobers' assessment of him, but this piece does seem to suggest that poor fielding and bowling support and apparently a greater armoury than Warne were the reasons.

 

[Richard]

Rich, are New Zealand during the 1950s one of the sides you count as minnows?

Yup, and I've never set any stall on Gupte's or anyone else's performance against them. But as I say, I've also never set all that much stall by basic bowling figures in Gupte's case. I've always said the all-chance average is of more interest in a batting context than a bowling one, but if I could compile it for one bowler Gupte would be the first choice, every time.

I've read some accounts of matches where he had more catches dropped off his bowling than caught. For an inswing bowler that mightn't be a terminal handicap. For an outspin bowler (ie, one who turned the ball away from the bat) it certainly is.

 

[aussie]

SJS on why Gupte was a badman! here.

Well he is surely the greatest orthodox leg spinner of all time India have produced.

That much we can say without much chance of contradiction with the unorthocox, medium pacers of Kumble and Chandra.

Gupte is widely called by those who played with or against him as the finest spinner India produced so we cant just ignore that claim out of hand, Amongst those who swear by him are as great and legendary cricketers as Sir garfield Sobers.

Inspite of Kumble's 600 plus wickets, Bishen's magnificently beautiful bowling and mastery over his subtle craft and Chandra's amazing ability to strike suddenly and venomously and win matches in a short sharp spell, the fact remains that the only other Indian bowler who has been considered amongst the all time greats by opponents Is Erapally Prasanna.

Just as the West Indians are enamoured by Gupte and swear by him, the Australians of the late 60's and early 70's swear by Prasanna. And you may not be fond of Ian Chappel but there are few more knowledgeable students of the game.

I havent seen Gupte bowl but I have heard of how great he was hundreds and thousands of times from those who had played with him. Prasanna I have seen and consider the greatest Indian spinner, I have seen for various reasons which will take some space.

Coming to the problem of putting Gupte's greatness in the context of his figures let me tell you that figures tell you something for sure but they dont tell you everything unless you KNOW it.

Whats the BIG difference between Gupte, Bedi, Chandra, Prasanna, Kumble, and Venkat ? Its the same difference as between Andy Roberts and the other great West Indian fast bowlers who followed. He had very modest, if any support at the other end. And yet so many of those who saw him at his peak consider Roberts the greatest of the many great West Indian fast bowlers.

Roberts for most of his peak as a fast bowler, bowled with medium pacers of modest caliber at the other end. By the time Holding developed into a world class fast bowler, Roberts' career was on the wane. Hence iplayers like Lillee, Imran, Lloyd, Trueman, Bailey and Mallet among others rate him higher than those who followed him in-spite of his figures being, comparatively, less impressive.

Bedi, Prasanna and Chandrashekhar were in a period when India had no pace bowlers to talk of but they had each other and Venkat waiting to play now and then. Between them they made the greatest spin attack ever assembled in one Test nation. This did help though Kapil arrived ten years late for India to really benefit from a truly awesome attack.

Kumble when he arrived had Kapil with some juice left in him, Prabhakar close to his best, Venkatpathy Raju who joined the same year and Javagal Srinath who made his debut the next year. By the time Kumble flowered around mid-90's, Srinath was a world class bowler. Before Srinath went Harbhajan had become a top flight off spinner and there were a host of young medium pacers knocking at the Test doors. Not to mention that India by now had become one of the great batting sides in the world which was important because Kumble didn't have to always defend very modest scores.

Gupte had the worst in this respect.

The only single bowler whose career, briefly, ran parallel to Gupte's was Vinoo Mankad. The others were nothing to write home about. Gupte made his debut in Dec 51, was promptly dropped and included exactly 12 months later in Nov. 1952. From then till 1956, he played 20 Test matches, mankad played in 19 of them.

In these 19 Tests, Gupte took 94 wickets at 23.5 each.

Mankad was to play no more for India till recalled in 1959 to lead the country against Alexander's West Indies. I think the 3rd captain in 4 Tests. Mankad was already 42 years old and bowled only in the first innings when he took four wickets while Gupte took one. Gupte took another four in the second as West Indies thrashed India once again.

India's previous series in the West Indies ha been six years ago in the Carribean and they had managed to draw four of the five Tests with Gupte being the outstanding bowler with 27 wickets. Valentine who took 28 for West Indies was the only bowler to take more. Mankad was the next best Indian bowler and his wickets cost him 24 runs per wicket more !!

This time they decided that the pace of Hall and Gilchrist had to be met with dead wickets. All that did was that the Indian bowlers were slaughtered in four of the five games while Hall and Gilchrist with sheer pace took 56 wickets between them at 17 apiece.

Windies ran up consecutive scores of 443 for 7, 614 for 5, 500 and 644 for 8 decl in the last four Tests to win three of them by 203 runs, an innings and 336 runs and 295 runs !!

Gupte toiled on those dead tracks to bowl 312.3 overs. The next three Indian bowlers Borde ramchand and Mankad bowled ten overs less !! between the three of them.

Gupte whose 4 for 86 in the first Test had helped restrict the Windies to a very modest 227 and whose fabulous 9 for 102 in the second Test got them, single handedly, for 222, still managed the series with nothing to show but the toil of bowling day in and day out on dead wickets.

After 15 wickets at 19.99 each in the first three innings of the series, he bowled 210 overs in the next five innings for just 7 wickets for almost 90 runs each. It broke his spirit.

He had dead wickets to contend with, and for fellow bowlers, as we have seen
- Borde, primarily a batsman - an allrounder of sorts,
- Mankad also an allrounder and well past his use by date,
- Ramchand again a bits and pieces player with 33 Test wickets in his career,
- Polly Umrigar again primarily a batsman,
- Surendranath a very modest bowler with 26 wickets in his Test career,
These were the five main bowlers for India in this series and between them they bowled 457 overs. Ramchand with 5 wickets at 49.4 was the most successful of the lot.

Four bowlers in the series took over ten wickets three of them bowled fast to medium pace in the series (Sobers too most of the time).

Hall 30, Gilchrist 26, Gupte 22 and Sobers 10.

Sometimes figures have to be seen in the wider context.

I think that if Gupte and Mankad had bowled in tandem for longer (more over lap) and/or if there had been a third bowler of some note in the Indian side of the fifites, we would be seeing completely different figures of Subhash Gupte.

I have stressed a lot on this series to stress the difference the lack of a balanced attack means. That is why Gupte, Andy Roberts and even kapil Dev for a large part of his early career and Richard Hadlee are such remarkable bowlers

 

[aussie]

And if anyone wishes to counter by arguing a case for Kumble over Gupte due to Kumble's longevity. SJS says:

Longevity alone doen't win too many arguements, does it. I haven't heard anyone on this forum putting Hobbs ahead of Bradman, WG ahead of Hobbs, Wilfred Rhodes ahead of Sobers and Woolley ahead of Lara.

Inspite of the many years Kumble has put in, have you ever heard anyone, ever, talk of him in terms of being the greatest spinner of all times. The fact is that some very highly respected names in the game have done that with Gupte. We may disagree with that claim but it surely tells us that longevity doesn't come into it. Sobers has talked of Gupte being better than Warne. He doesn't talk of Gupte being better than Kumble let alone talking of Kumble being better than Warne. Longevity does tell something about a cricketer but when you compare one great cricketer with another, you invariably think of each at his best and there aren't many who have had a twenty year peak.