Kumble - carrying on the strike bowler tradition
The label of India's main strike bowler wears lightly on Anil Kumble
Partab Ramchand
28-Oct-1999
The label of India's main strike bowler wears lightly on Anil Kumble.
The tall, studious looking computer expert is also an expert assassin
on the cricket field. The trained assassin is one who has a gun. In
Kumble's case, he fills the role having no more than a cricket ball.
Give the ball to him and as he marks out his run and discusses the
field with his captain, one can make out a definite sign of nerves in
the batsman as he prepares to face up to India's No 1 bowler of the
decade. Like any great bowler, Kumble gives the impression that a
wicket is imminent every time he gets ready to bowl.
In this, Kumble is just carrying on the strike bowler's tradition in
Indian cricket. In the thirties, India's two main bowlers were Md
Nissar and Amar Singh. In the forties, it was Lala Amarnath and Vinoo
Mankad. The left arm spinner carried on the good work in the fifties
but had to share the spotlight with Subash Gupte. Then as the sixties
dawned, that moody left arm spinner Salim Durrani was India's chief
wicket taker. But by the mid sixties, the spin quartet who were to
tease and torment batsmen the world over till the end of the seventies
had taken shape. Indian cricket, basking in the glory of Bedi,
Chandrasekhar, Prasanna and Venkatraghavan notched up many notable
triumphs. Then, even as the aging quartet was breaking up, a burly lad
from Haryana burst upon the scene. Throughout the eighties and right
up to the early 90s, Kapil Dev remained India's main stock and strike
bowler. For a short while in the early 80s, Dilip Doshi rivalled Kapil
Dev in the wicket taking act but for almost a decade the well built
medium pacer had to trundle virtually on his own.
Just as Kapil's strike rate was beginning to fall, Kumble emerged on
the scene. He made his debut in England in 1990 but it was in South
Africa that he first announced that he had arrived on the
international scene by taking six wickets in one innings in the second
Test. For a time it looked like a new spin trio had taken shape in
Kumble, Venkatpathi Raju and Rajesh Chauhan as they bowled India to a
unique 3-0 sweep over England in the 1993 series in this country. But
even at this stage, with Kumble leading the way with 21 wickets in the
three Tests, it became obvious that whether it was a duo, trio or
quartet, the `smiling assassin' from Karnataka would be the leader of
the pack.
As events turned out, he was not just the leader but the only one.
Even as Raju, Chauhan and Hirwani faded away, Kumble went from
strength to strength. His remarkable six for 12 in the Hero Cup final
at Calcutta against West Indies marked him out as an exciting
prospect. By 1994, Kapil had retired. Since then, Kumble had been
India's bowler of the decade, with occasional help from his Karnataka
speed colleague Javagal Srinath. The Indian spearhead crossed a
personal landmark in the just concluded Kanpur Test by notching up his
150th wicket in his 40th Test. Notable as this feat is, making him
only the second medium pacer after Kapil Dev to cross the mark, it is
still Kumble to whom the cricket fans in this country look up to take
wickets.
These high expectations can cause even the mighty to fall. Even the
spin quartet which dominated the scene for well over a decade, could
not have felt the pressure so much. For, after all, there were four
bowlers. If one bowler failed, there were others to fulfil the
expectations. These days, Kumble is expected to take a bagful of
wickets every time he comes on to bowl. Possibly under the weight of
these expectations, Kumble has has his off days. Only recently, he was
dropped for a couple of one day tournaments as there was a palpable
drop in his strike rate. It did seem odd that a bowler good enough to
be only the second in the history of Test cricket, now 122 years and
some 1500 matches old, to take all ten wickets in a Test innings,
should be dropped within a few months. But perhaps in a way the
omission did him a world of good. For he is now a more determined
cricketer.
For long, Kumble has not received the attention that Shane Warne or
even Mushtaq Ahmed has got. As orthodox leg spinners who gave the ball
a healthy tweak, they garnered most of the attention. Kumble's forte
was his accuracy but the minimal turn he achieved and the lack of
variety in his bowling seemed to relegate him to the back bench as far
as world media attention was concerned - despite what he achieved
against Pakistan in the New Delhi Test in February this year. It
promises to be a lot different now. For there is little doubt that he
is at the peak of his powers right now. His top spinners are deadlier,
his googlies turn a lot more and the occasional leg break is
alarmingly deceptive.
A lot has been made about Kumble failing to be among the wickets
outside India, that the vast majority of his victims have been claimed
on our designer dust bowls here. No doubt there is much truth in this,
as can be gauged by the fact that while he has taken 157 wickets in 28
Tests at home at an average of 21.31, abroad he has taken only 96
wickets in 27 Tests at 36.83 apiece. However with Kumble right now at
the most destructive phase of his career, one can possibly predict a
change for the better as far as his fortunes abroad as concerned.
Perhaps the tour of Australia - where there is the prospect of an
exciting one to one contest with Shane Warne - will be a pointer to
the shape of things to come from a cricketer who has already taken his
place as among the great Indian spinners.