It takes a bit more than an hour to reach San Fernando from Port-of-Spain by road. The breeze hits so hard that your face feels contorted by the end. In the heart of a clean, methodical, residential area there is a pleasant, peach bungalow. Inside, a man on a walker with thin arms and legs, and white hair combed backed neatly behind a vast forehead, hobbles into the living room with a warm and welcoming smile. There's a bit of an eccentric genius about him. Subhash Gupte, now 72, was a very, very good legspinner. Garry Sobers called him the best he has seen or faced. "I must have bribed him..." West Indies was the team he once took the nine wickets in an innings against. "A fluke."

A wicket falls at the Queen's Park Oval and the radio clears its throat in the other room. "Just see what has happened," he tells his wife, Carol. Gupte is not happy about Anil Kumble's omission. "How can your drop your main bowler? Of course, some people say Srinath is the main bowler. My foot." Gupte had one time met Kumble. "More speed, less spin. More spin, less speed. Bowl slow, but not lollipops," he had advised him.

Gupte moved to Trinidad 40 years ago on his wife's persuasion and because a gentleman named Frank Blackburn who was "mad after cricket", offered him a job with the sugar manufacturer, Caroni. Gupte had met Carol on the 1952-53 tour of the West Indies, a time that he had spun his way to 50 first-class wickets, and according to one fan, "was all the talk in town." Carol's father had arranged for a match to be played at San Fernando. Subhash saw Carol at an official function, and was smitten. A long flirtation via post followed. When Subhash proposed in a letter, he was asked to redirect it to Carol's father. It all worked out.

It's been hard for Gupte since 1987, when he had a fall while walking his pet dog that badly damaged the right hip. Since then, he has had to use the walker. A couple of months ago, he had another surgery arising out of complications. He has had four minor falls after that, because he didn't like staying in bed for a month, as he was required to.

The romantic in Gupte is well alive. His favourite contemporaries are all flair players: Mark Waugh, Yousuf Youhana, Wasim Akram. Tendulkar and Lara are great but he couldn't care to compare. Lara, being a lefthander has it easier, because he can just "whoop it off his pads. He is a whooper." He doesn't think Murali "pelts", though isn't as convinced about his team-mate, Jasu Patel.

Another wicket falls. "Six gone?" It's Ajay Ratra, on debut, for duck, he is told. "Duck on debut? Like me. Against Statham in 1951." He imitates Statham's reaction on getting the wicket. "Gupte struggling," he laughs.

He has an incredible memory, says Carol. He does. He remembers domestic cricket in India, a system he is severly critical of. "Hopeless. One match I played for Bengal, versus Orissa, at Cuttack. I am not bragging - I was standing and bowling. They were hopeless. The matting was just from stump to stump, it is supposed to be the width of a normal pitch. When it used to get dark, the beers and rums used to come out and the Bengalis would do maara-maari (fight) every blooming night."

He remembers practicing his craft at 3pm ("on the dot") every afternoon at the Elphinstone pitch at the Oval Maidan in South Bombay. "It was the best practice ever. Then by 9.30, [Madhav] Mantri and Gupte, back in Dadar by local train." He remembers how Vijay Manjrekar used to sing for the Indian team in the dressing room. Was he any good at it? "I have my doubts." He remembers the time he was pulled up for wearing shorts, but when Tiger Pataudi got away with wearing shorts with a blazer at an official function. "He was a Nawab."

He remembers how Vijay Hazare, as captain, treated him so badly that it "felt like a waste of time playing with him." He remembers that Neil Harvey, who tore him apart in Bombay in 1956-57, was far and away the best player of spin that he has seen. And he remembers how a very good friend and a decent-enough cricketer, Rohan Kanhai, almost got married to a Bombay girl. "Chaya - from Khar."

He remembers, dearly, the ten wickets in an innings he took in a league match in England, and the double hat-trick he achieved, also in league cricket, in the course of a 9 for 11. And he remembers how Vasant Ranjane snared Lance Gibbs at Kanpur because of which Gupte didn't end with all ten. "Mankad would have tossed it wide."

His eyes light up when his wife brings out a clever and intriguing photograph. Morphed into a single team photo are those polled by a panel of experienced journalists as the Indian all-time XI. There's Gavaskar, Merchant, Hazare, Tendulkar, Nayudu, Mankad, Kapil, Kirmani, Prasanna, Nissar. And there's Gupte.

Rahul Bhattacharya is a staff writer with Wisden.com India. His reports will appear here throughout the Test series.

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