Anil Kumble a man of few words when it comes to giving interviews, but give him a cricket pitch and then the bullets from this AK47 aka Anil Kumble start getting his ’’enemy’’.
A tall cricketer who would have been a fast bowler but according to the Darwinian theory evolved as a better spin bowler, and the traces of his fast bowling prowess can be seen in the long jump and the speed in which his deliveries get their victims.
Indian bowlers are a mixed bag but the most surprising nay flabbergasting of all is Kumble’s yorker, which is as good as a toe-crusher.
His repertoire of deliveries include the flipper, top spinner, googly and the leg break.
The flipper is the most dangerous of his stock deliveries with the trajectory kept unchanged the batsman is bamboozled for pace and the stump-to-stump line.
Nowadays he relies more on his slow leg breaks which have started turning more than they used to earlier.
This is in my opinion taken the sting out of his bowling to a certain effect.For earlier he used to use the crease to a telling effect from wide off the crease he used to send his less turning leg break which used to castle the batsman with the slightest of deviation.
The trajectory a very difficult one for the batsman to cope with for he used to play for the one that used to come in but the slight deviation would take his off stump-the Robin Smith dismissal in the 1993 England series at home is a telling reminder of AK’s ingenuity.
The nature of the pitch hardly bothers him but his forte of using the crease has stopped and thereby his penchant for at least 5 wickets per match has decreased.
His economy rate remains one of the best and like an archer shooting arrows his bull’s eye is always met.
Nagging length, a superb line, the engineer’s mind to think out the batsman are hallmarks of AK.
The bounce surprisingly aids him and this is a novelty that is not present with the other great spinners of the world.
The red shining ball actually suits him for a better grip and the landing of the seam from a height of 9 feet creates the disconcerting bounce and on the contrary if the bounce is low, then his flippers will thud onto your pads or stumps unerringly and unstintingly.
India salutes the bowler in the mould of the great Bhagwat Chandrashekhar.
It is high time we create his clone immediately for the future of Indian Cricket and the potency of India to bowl out the opposition twice.