Who was the first Indian bowler to take nine wickets in a test innings
(09th May 2001)
The great Vinoo Mankad took eight wickets in an innings twice for
India in Tests. But the honour of being the first Indian bowler to
take nine wickets in an innings fell to Subash Gupte.
The peerless leg spinner, then at the peak of his powers, had taken
his 100th wicket in Tests in the first match of the 1958-59 series
against West Indies at Bombay. In the next Test at Kanpur, he
literally had the fleet footed Caribbean batsmen in a spin. He took
the first seven wickets - Conrad Hunte, Jack Holt, Gary Sobers, Rohan
Kanhai, Collie Smith, Basil Butcher and Joe Solomon - before medium
pacer Vasant Ranjane bowled Lance Gibbs to break the sequence. Gupte
however took the last two wickets, those of skipper Gerry Alexander
and Wesley Hall to finish with the outstanding figures of
34.3-11-102-9. He took one more wicket in the second innings to finish
with his only ten wicket match haul in his 36-Test career.
Unfortunately, Gupte was also the first bowler to take nine wickets in
an innings and finish on the losing side with India going down to a
203-run defeat. His feat was equalled by two more Indian bowlers Jasu Patel
who took nine for 69 against Australia, also at Kanpur in 1959-60 and by
Kapil Dev who finished with nine for 83 against West Indies at Ahmedabad
in 1983-84. All these three were of course eclipsed by Anil Kumble's all
ten feat against Pakistan at New Delhi in 1998-99.
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