The spinner with a fast bowler’s attitude

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Finally, age scored the decisive point over competitiveness.

Anil Kumble was willing to go on and on, to continue to soldier along in the cause of Indian cricket and spearhead the spin bowling as he had been doing admirably for over a decade and a half. But time remains the sportsman’s greatest enemy and at 38, he had to listen to the aged body that was telling him loud and clear through his injuries and his continuing lack of success that he should call it a day.

Ever the pragmatist, Kumble made the right move in exiting the international stage that he had graced with his bowling skills and gentlemanly conduct at the precise moment. Had he lingered on, he would have been not only letting himself and his body down, but also Indian cricket. The very fact that his 28 wickets from ten Tests this year had cost him over 50 apiece illustrates the decline. Try as he might, the zip was missing from his bowling.

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Taking mainly the wickets of tail-enders could not have pleased a fiercely competitive cricketer like him. Many times during his long and illustrious career, he had to bowl on batting beauties, but there was no lack of effort on his part. He toiled away relentlessly in search of that one moment of weakness which he could exploit even as his famous accuracy kept the run rate down.

This will remain our enduring image of him - of a ceaselessly great trier who just never gave up and who took adverse conditions and situations in his stride. He was almost obstinate in his never-say-die attitude.

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Yes, Shane Warne probably brought out the romantic in us because he was such a classical bowler who could make the ball rip. Kumble’s detractors held the view that he did not turn the ball much, but as he repeatedly said in his defence, he spun it enough to find the edge of the bat and that was good enough to get the better of the best batsmen and win matches.

His bowling was based on his incredible accuracy and batsmen found him hard to get away. When they tried a forcing stroke, they were outwitted by a bowler good enough to make adroit use of flight, turn and change of pace. Extraordinarily, his bag of tricks was unfathomable for an extended period as he mixed the leg break with the googly and flipper cleverly, all sent down with the trademark wicked bounce and never giving the batsman any respite.

That was the Kumble the cricketing world admired, but he had other qualities going for him as well — great mental strength, fierce determination, immense courage.

The image of Kumble dismissing Brian Lara leg before in the West Indies in 2002 with a broken jaw is a recurring one, but that was typical of a cricketer who was a team man to the core.

Kumble was always the spinner with a fast bowler’s attitude.

This probably came about because he started his career as a medium pacer in schools cricket. Being tall and energetic, he did a passable job, but when he was 15, his elder brother Dinesh persuaded him to switch over to leg spin.

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Kumble was to recall later that there was no one to guide him or coach him or show him how to grip the ball. But he did have the will to succeed, the burning ambition to make it to the top and the aptitude for hard work besides a certain amount of talent. These qualities helped him overcome any hurdles that might have occurred because of a lack of technical cricketing education and very soon with his energetic arm swing and powerful shoulders he was making the deliveries bounce like a tennis ball.

Initially, he was compared to BS Chandrasekhar and not without good reason. After all, Kumble too was not an orthodox leg spinner. Like Chandra, the googly was his stock delivery, and the leg break and the top spinner were the surprise weapons. He did not send down the unplayable delivery as much as Chandra did, but then Kumble was less likely to bowl hittable balls.

As one among only four Indian bowlers to take over 1000 wickets in first-class cricket — the others being Bishen Bedi, Chandra and S Venkatraghavan — Kumble is in exalted company. But perhaps this most intense of competitors will not be happy at the disparity between his Test figures at home and abroad.

His 350 wickets in 63 matches in India have been obtained at just under 25 apiece, whereas his 269 scalps abroad have been taken at almost 36 apiece. His strike rate at home is 59.4, but abroad it is 74.5. It is only here that he does not compare favourably with the spin trio of Bedi, Chandra and Prasanna and the master of ‘em all Subash Gupte.

But on every other count he stands tall and even in a country that has thrown up the most fascinating variety of spin bowlers the cricketing world has ever known, Kumble can hold his own.

As he rides off into the sunset, Kumble will be happy, both for having his done his job over an extended period admirably and the fact that Indian cricket’s traditional strength will continue to be formidable with Harbhajan Singh around and other young spinners ready to step in. His departure, though, leaves a void that cannot be filled.

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