Anil 600 Kumble: a quiet titan basks in the splendid, long evening of his career

Three months later, he made his Test debut and could scarcely have imagined that one day the figure 601 would stand alongside his name. Being the engineering student he then was he might well have thought it was, like the Avogadro number, one of those strange numbers that appear only in text books. It was far too many wickets to contemplate.

But he has soared since then. For in his corner stood perseverance, aggression and dignity, great human qualities if you are searching for a role model, terrible friends, it seems, if you have to become an advertising personality. There has to be something wrong there. Everytime a challenge presented itself, Kumble bit his lip, locked those piercing eyes on his target and returned to the top of his run-up.

Everytime the captain looked at him he wanted the ball, everytime people said he didn’t turn the ball he took more wickets. That is how six hundred came about. With grit and toil and a spirit that said it could be done. You can tell I’m a fan. And I’m proud to be one. I looked at a star, not a meteor.

Many years ago, I was asked to do a piece on him and we called it the quiet titan. He worked for the watch company then and so the match seemed right. It still is. Without doubt he is the best slow bowler India has produced; home and away, on a good pitch and bad. Even the best spinners normally start tailing off, their wiles recognized, their guile no longer as enticing, their tricks a bit tired. Kumble, at 37, is amazingly picking up wickets with the same frequency, he is adding new deliveries to his repertoire and is disturbingly ahead of anyone in India as a bowler at the moment.

He is a titan and he is still quiet and thank god for that. And he is a substantial man. If he doesn’t feature very prominently in the Republic Day Honours List, he may not feel bad but India should.

And yet he has been the forgotten spinner. While Warne and Murali fought epic duels in print and in words, sparked debates across continents, he did what he knows best. He kept picking wickets. Unlike Murali, there is no sleight of hand, not a murmur about an action. Unlike Warne, there is no scandal and he certainly won’t be signing up to play poker. Each of the three enriched the sport they played and you might say Kumble was the most prosaic of all. You might say he is the bricklayer and that will do him no discredit for this is a mighty fine structure he has built.

... contd.