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.

... contd.