MUMBAI: The city's cricketing fraternity was left grieving as former Mumbai and Railways First-Class player and selector Guru Gupte passed away on Wednesday at his residence in Thane. He was 66.
He played 12 First-Class matches between 1974-75 to 1980-81, in which he scored 461 runs@24.26, including one hundred-170 against Tamil Nadu in Chennai in the Ranji Trophy semifinals of the 1980-81 season. He was a member of the Indian Schoolboys team which toured the UK in 1974. Post retirement, he was a Mumbai selector at all levels for a number of years.
Gupte was a close friend and schoolmate of former India captain Dilip Vengsarkar. "Guru was part of my team, King George school when we beat St. Mary's in the final of the Giles Shield in 1972. He was an outstanding batsman and a great team man. He was a very good fielder too. He toured with the Indian Schools team to England in 1973," Vengsarkar told TOI.
"A wonderful human being, he was a good selector too and had an eye for talent, besides being very honest and straightforward. This is a big loss for Mumbai cricket," the former India chief selector added. "Oh, oh! That's sad," reacted batting legend Sunil Gavaskar from Dubai when this paper informed him about the sad news.
Gupte's 170 in the second innings of the Ranji semis came against a TN attack which had great off-spinner S Venkataraghavan in it. Mumbai won the title in that 1980-81 season, but Gupte, surprisingly, was dropped from the squad next season, and never played for Mumbai again. "He was extremely talented. Dilip, Sandeep (Patil) and Guru were the three schoolboy stars of Mumbai cricket those days. However, while Dilip and Sandeep played for India, Guru couldn't make it. As his contemporaries, we were very surprised that he couldn't play for India. He had the potential to do so," said former Mumbai off-spinner Kiran Mokashi.
