Subhash Gupte recalls how he and four others saved Nari Contractor's life

Former Indian cricket Subhash Gupte recently recalled how he and four others donated blood and saved the life of former captain Nari Contractor during the fateful tour of the Caribbean back in 1962.

The Indian Cricket Team was on the tour of West Indies in the summer of 1962 under the leadership of Nari Contractor.

On May 17th the tourists were in the midst of a practice game against Barbados, an Eastern Caribbean island.

On the second day of the game, Contractor was struck on his head while ducking to a vicious bouncer from Charlie Griffith.

Contractor sustained a serious head injury, promoting the opposition captain Sir Frank Worrell and a whole host of cricketers from both sides, including Subhash Gupte, come together to donate blood.

Gupte recently opened up about the incident during an exclusive conversation with TimesnewsNow.

"He (Griffith) bowled a bouncer which Nari tried to duck. That bouncer hit on his right side because being a left-hander his right side was towards the bowler. He fell down. I was in the dressing room. I took a glass of water and ran to the wicket. Nari said that he was in a lot of pain. 

We brought him to the dressing room. Our manager was Ghulam Ahmed. It was decided to take him to a clinic. There was one doctor named Ford. Xray showed a crack on the right side. The doctor said to Ghulam Ahmed that he has to be operated immediately within one hour otherwise it will be very dangerous."

Contractor's blood group was B+ and with Worrell, Gupte, Polly Umrigar, Bapu Nadkarni and a journalist shared the same blood group, they decided to donate their blood.

"Dr Ford said that he was not a Neuro-surgeon. But they had to operate on him. B+ group blood was required. There were five people. One was Sir Frank Worrell, others were Bapu Nadkarni, Polly Umrigar, myself and Prabhu, a journalist. We had the same blood group," he said.

A Neuro-surgeon was immediately flown in from Trinidad the following day and Contractor's life was thankfully saved.

Recently, a metal plate that was inserted in his head during the surgery was removed after a period of 60 years.

The injury cut-short Contractor's international career. He represented India in 31 games between 1955-62, scoring 1611 runs @ 31.59 apiece with 11 50s and one hundred.