Anil Kumble and his trusted, worn out India cap, on another head it might have been just another cap, finally walked out for the last time at his favourite Kotla. They could no longer disregard the plaintive cries from his body. In recent times it had complained of wear and tear but was happily subservient to his heart. And so he played through unbearable pain, jabbing himself all over, but not letting a soul know, as he strove towards one final ambition: winning another series against Australia.
The announcement itself was typical of the man: no grandstanding, no ostentation, no farewell tour. Anything else would have jarred, it wouldn't have been Kumble. One of the greatest team-men the game has known did his job and said good-bye. In his last Test match, he had eleven stitches and was under general anesthesia for half a day. When the numbness vanished, when the body was over-ruled once more, he returned to take three more wickets.
He has timed his exit well. He wasn't hurrying batsmen the same way and the rocket ball, the fast topspinner that has fooled many, was a rare sighting. It was inevitable. The mind schemes, plans every ball, but the body bowls it. It was taking too much out of him. And so in later years he developed the slow, loopy googly, put more fizz into the leg break and kept coming at the batsmen. He never shirked. That is why batsmen respected him and captains wanted him.
Bowling with a fractured jaw in Antigua was the most visible expression of his commitment. But it wasn't unexpected. Sourav Ganguly once said that if the opposition was 250 for 1 and he was looking around the field, there was one man who was looking straight back at him because he wanted the ball. And Shane Warne said Anil Kumble became the best cricketer he could be. He was right. Kumble extracted from himself more than what he did from pitches. And he did that because of the power of his desire.
He wanted wickets and to get wickets he had to bowl and to be able to bowl enough he had to be the best he could be. Every day, every ball. He didn't rip the ball as much as others, didn't turn it enough but people didn't understand for a long time, till he went past Kapil Dev's record, that he didn't need to. He changed the perception of spin bowling, suggesting a variation from the established pillars of guile, spin and turn. He varied pace and bounce instead and did just enough with the ball to draw edges. Inevitably they would carry to slip where another giant of Indian cricket, Rahul Dravid, would catch them.
His association with the Kotla, where he bowled better than anywhere else, was strange. The ground had a reputation for being shabby and disorganized, full of opportunistic grabbers of complimentary tickets, people whose photographs outdid their deeds. It was so unlike everything that Kumble stood for. Yet it was here that he returned to international cricket with thirteen wickets in an Irani Trophy match in 1992 and memorably took all ten against Pakistan in 1999. They will do well to remember him fondly here.
In course of time, like with the legends, we will remember Kumble by his numbers. They are extraordinary but the picture they paint is beautiful and incomplete. They will not tell you of the dignity with which he played the game, of the integrity he stood for and of the extraordinary respect he carried in the cricketing world; as a bowler but even more so, as a man.
And now a pillar has gone. But these are cricketing pillars, not structural ones, for new pillars will emerge. And Kumble will gradually stand aside, a colossal figure looking benignly on as another takes hesitant steps towards cricketing glory. He will not be short of advice as he had for Harbhajan when with his arm in a sling he attended every day of India's training camp before the 2001 series against Australia. Even the volatile Harbhajan talks softly and respectfully about Kumble's contribution.
I have been an open and unabashed fan of Kumble's and consider myself privileged to have seen this journey from a quiet young man to a quiet giant. At all times he has been tough and relentless but he has also been dignified. As he wiped a tear yesterday, maybe the first tear on a cricket ground, I felt another welling up in a bedroom in another city. A great competitor, a great cricketer and a great man. And a proud Indian.
CAclubindia
