* Gupte was the finest, says Sobers

'Blonde Bombshell' Shane Warne might have his backers. For Sir Donald Bradman it might be Bill O'Reilly who was the finest of his tribe. But as far as Sir Garry Sobers is concerned all arguments end with Subhash Gupte.

"(Gupte) had everything including two googles (googlies) that turned (one with a high arm action and one delivered more round-arm). His flight, length direction were magnificent," go4cricket.com quoted Sobers who was speaking at a function Cape Town in South Africa on Friday.

The legendary all-rounder felt it was the amount of turn that Warne extracted that impressed people. "He never used to bowl the googly at first because he used to telegraph it and you could see it a mile off. His flipper was easy to pick up; there was always a little bit of a change (in his action)."

Gupte played 36 Tests between 1952 and 1961 claiming 149 Test wickets. A wrist spinner who could turn it on any surface and one who possessed baffling variety, he bowled an immaculate line and length. At his peak, he bowled to batsmen of the calibre of the three W's and Allan Rae with a short leg, a silly mid-on and a silly mid-off! His best Test figures were 9-102 against a West Indies side that also included Sobers in Kanpur in 1958.

Sobers opinion about "Fergie" Gupte only echoes what many Indian observers have been saying for a long time. The late Pankaj Roy, for instance, while speaking to Cricinfo.com in September 2000 had said, "People, who are making such a statement (that Shane Warne was the best leggie ever), have not seen Subhash Gupte. He had two googlies in his armory. The first was quite apparent to the batsman, the second was the killer. Subhash Gupte would possibly accounted for more victims if he had played the same number of Tests that Warne has done."

The 71-year-old Gupte is currently living in Trinidad where he settled after marrying a West Indian. On Saturday, the Indian Board nominated him the 2000 CK Nayadu award.

* 'Deep' in happiness

The new Indian wicket-keeper, the 23-year-old Deep Dasgupta was elated to hear that he had been selected for India's tour of South Africa.

"My dad called me up from Kolkata and gave me the news. I cannot express what I felt," Dasgupta told Press Trust of India.

"It is indeed a great opportunity for a youngster like me to play for the country. It is a dream come true. I have to make the best of it," said Dasgupta, currently playing for Bengal in the Moin-ud-Dowla Gold Cup.

"I had been in contention for some time. But now that I have been selected, it is a totally different feeling. In some way, I was expecting it."

Sameer Dighe, for all his commitment, was pathetic behind the stumps. The selectors were right when they decided that he couldn't be trusted with the important job of keeping wickets on the hard and bouncy tracks in South Africa. Hopefully, Dasgupta who is said to be very good 'keeper, will hopefully measure up to the task and prove to be a long-term option.

* Das ready to settle for a slot in the middle-order

Another East Zone man was also celebrating on Friday. Shiv Sunder Das who has impressed as a Test opener, has also earned his first call-up to the one-day squad. The little man from Orissa feeels he might be able to gain a place in middle-order in the shorter version of the game.

"I will not change my game too much, I will play the same way. These three weeks of practice will be very good and I will use a plastic ball. Going early to South Africa will be good it will give us the confidence," Das told New Delhi Television.

Something his long-time coach, Kishore Mania, fully endorsed. "The same technique - taking singles and not going for big shots and trying and rotating the strike should work," said Mania.

Das, who is basically a backfoot player with a compact defence, is one of the Indians expected to do well in South Africa. He is sure to get his opportunity of facing up to the South African quicks in Tests. But a one-day cap might be longer in coming.

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