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Anil Kumble’s elevation to cricket’s hot seat may not be a retrograde step. Actually, it is the best thing that has happened to groom Twenty20 and one-day skipper M S Dhoni as India’s Test captain.
It goes without saying that Anil Kumble, is, perhaps, the most not-hyped cricketer this side of the globe.
The fact is: Kumble not only beats celebrities and Booker Prize-winners hollow, but also a host of reputed spinners — in any era. He has always been in the thick of combat — but, not as an advertisement hoarding, or walking placard, as some of his more famous team-mates are. His presence has always been low-profile; his accomplishments being tall in their composition. In addition, his exploits have not been much glorified and/or ignited banner headlines, or issued on postal stamp.
It is rightly said that for some adulation comes after they have had their halcyon days in the sun, not during their moments in the centre of action. Kumble, who should have been India’s Test captain, at least five years ago, may just be the reluctant patron of this idiom. Yet, there isn’t anything that he has to make up for — in actuality, it is we, cricket writers and fans, who ought to recompense him for not having given him his deserving eminence.
An icon among spinners, Kumble has always been in vogue. Never out of fashion. And, what’s more, he’s also gotten into the grey matter, or the cricket bone, or, maybe, the genes, of an entirely new generation, brought up on a mandatory TV diet, Coke, or Mc-burgers. Also, what has truly made the Kumble genre of leg-spin bowling what it is, so to say, is not numbers — it’s rather a habitat as germane as the immortal songs of The Beatles.
Records, after all, are only meant to be broken… When Kapil Dev surpassed Sir Richard Hadlee’s Bradman-like cipher as far as bowling in Test cricket was concerned — it was a first. It was also something no one had reached, or arrived at, before. The point was not what it took Hadlee to climb up a new summit — it’s also quite akin to comparing the sweet melodies of Mozart with Beethoven’s. Each one is different, and unparalleled, as a masterpiece. You get the point — that comparisons are odious would apply not just to cricket or music, but also to all of the arts, the sciences, or think of what you may. Ask Kumble, a bowler in a class of his own, who has a much better long-term strike rate than any Indian spinner — including the grand quartet [E A S Prasanna, B S Chandrasekhar, Bishen Singh Bedi, and S Venkataraghavan] -– even if he’d only smile, and play the entire thing of achievement down!
At 37, and at the twilight of his magnificent career, Kumble continues to be a prominent member of the Indian Test team. He has also been, doubtless, a big gain for India for almost a decade-and-a-half — ever since his debut for the country, in 1990. That he has now taken more wickets than any Indian bowler in either forms of the game does not make him proud. What makes him exceedingly pleased is — he’s carried himself with both dignity, and assiduousness, on and off the field… without being concerned for either privilege, or derision. He has always tried to do his best — come what may. His demeanour, on the field, and off the field, has been exemplary — a great lesson no less to aspiring and established cricketers, wherever the game is played.
A bit of narration… Kumble, who began his international career quite satisfactorily, did not take too long to establish himself as one of India’s frontline bowlers — during the country’s South African sojourn, in 1992. His tally: 8 wickets in his very Second Test Match. In the same year, he scalped 21 English wickets, in India, in 3 Tests [average = 19.08]. This was not all. It took Kumble just 10 Tests to reach 50 wickets — the second Indian to achieve the feat in quick time. Besides this, the engineer-leggie from the Garden City, the nucleus of Information Technology, ably followed in the illustrious footsteps of fellow Bangalorean and spinning genius, E A S Prasanna, an engineer, to become the second Indian bowler to reach 100 wickets in Tests — in just 21 matches.
When he trapped Bangladesh’s Mohammad Rafique, not many moons ago, the Bangalore spinner had overwhelmed Kapil’s staggering record for an Indian bowler in Test match cricket, yes. Most important: Kumble had also taken fewer Tests than Kaps to reach and surpass the milestone. It was a tribute to Kumble’s formidable prowess — of transcendent dexterity that has not been subject of grand adulation vis-à-vis Kapil “Haryana Hurricane” Dev’s huge connotation garnered during his heady days… and after. When he scalped Steve Harmison, circa 2006, Kumble had accomplished another milestone — the 500-Test-wickets club — the first by an Indian bowler.
Kumble, who carries a perceptive cricketing brain, is also the only Indian bowler ever to have taken 5 wickets in a Test innings 25 times, and 10 wickets in a match 6 times — it’s a feat he shares with the “Wizard of Oz,” Warne, and the “Chopin” from the Emerald Isle, Muttiah Muralitharan. Agreed that Kumble’s Test bowling average [27+] and his ODI bowling standard [30+] are quite below the ground vis-à-vis other great spin bowlers, but what makes him unique is his indefatigable mental and physical constructs — that he once bowled 72 overs, in a Test innings, is not what reveries are made of for any bowler, and in pretty difficult conditions!
Kumble is, quite truly, a workhorse of the top draw — a man who never ever complains even when the going is awful, or when he’s not in the best of form. He is also courage-personified. Remember the Fourth Test against the West Indies, at Antigua, in 2002, when he came on to bowl with a fractured jaw, and with bandage straps all over his countenance? He looked like a man possessed — an alien from outer space. This is, quite truly, his sense of commitment — a glowing statement for a 110 per cent cricketer.
Kumble, who has led Karnataka with distinction, is not a rabbit with the bat. He does not seem to have done justice — though he can bat more than a fragment is proven fact. Witness: his maiden Test century in England, this year. He’d have certainly done better — but, it would, perforce, have had a wobbling effect on his bowling — good for Kumble, good for India.
Kumble, a fitness fiend, has never invited cricket fans and connoisseurs to concur with him, yes. He’s thought of his vocation as a pathway to elicit complete response in the form of taking wickets by the dozen — without taking sides. This is something that all of us can empathise with without biased leanings. More so, because, Kumble has given no room for ambivalent beliefs in his spinning excursions. He’s been exceptionally free from opinionated thought, or controversy. Besides, he is a prescriber par excellence of a magical tonic called cricketing glory — or, winning as a new line of defence.
Now, the best part: nobody, most importantly, Kumble’s innumerable fans mull over him as a star. He is “measured” as one among us — one, who has played the game engagingly, more so because he’s not thought of cricket as a stride to greatness, but humility in the face of greatness.
The irony is telling. Kumble — or, “Jumbo,” as he’s affectionately called — has never been in the limelight despite being every part of it. In other words, he has been a champion without being one — in the public eye.
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Rajgopal Nidamboor is a Mumbai-based writer-editor, and author of “Cricket Boulevard.”
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