61: Anil Kumble

132 matches. 619 wickets @ 29.65. Strike rate: 65.99. 35x 5wi.

18 years. 7x good. 2x excellent. 2x outstanding.

The discussion

I don’t know if all wrist-spinners are like me, but if they are, they sometimes feel like only they can truly appreciate the degree of difficulty that is bowling wrist-spin, even at a mediocre level. It’s harder than you think — and the odd tossed up leg-break bowled in the deepening gloom at the end of training, or the occasional roll-your-arm-over-because-the-opposition-are-four-hundred-for-three-and-you’re-the-opening-bowler-and-you’re-too-buggered-to-run-thirty-yards-in-the-blistering-heat-bowling-on-a-stretch-of-highway doesn’t give the part-timer a true appreciation of the torture and anguish that is a lifetime of wrist-spin bowling.

I’m reminded of the great quote from American president John F. Kennedy in September 1962:

“We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too.”

I don’t think we really know what the other things are; but I like to think that the other things are bowling wrist-spin. We choose to do it not because it is easy, but because it is hard.  If you ask me, it is the most exacting discipline — the hardest to control, the most difficult to master.

But let’s move to the subject of today’s missive, the great Indian wrist-spinner Anil Kumble.

 A little like the discussion around Rangana Herath earlier in our Hall of Fame series, watching Anil Kumble wasn’t as visually appealing at first glance as watching a prodigious turner of the ball — someone like Shane Warne, Stuart MacGill or Muttiah Muralidaran, or even (at least in my mind) Richie Benaud. Kumble’s high arm action limited the amount of purchase that he was able to impart with his stock delivery, the leg-break. Even in Indian conditions, Kumble wasn’t a tremendous spinner of the ball. However, if you get the trusty protractor out and measure the angle between the most turn Warnie could get, and the most turn that Kumble could get including the wrong ’un, then the difference between the two great tweakers diminishes markedly. To explain it another way, Kumble turned his wrong ’un further, and so batters not only had to counter a leg-break, but also a delivery that turned back towards the right-hander and threatened the inside edge of the bat as well. That high arm action made it easier to position the wrist for the wrong ’un, and, perhaps more importantly, made it easier to disguise the wrong ’un. Kumble’s action also helped him to extract a little more bounce than big-turning leg-spinners, particularly with the delivery coming from a great height (I think Kumble was over six foot tall — a reader might correct me if I’ve made that up).

In Indian conditions, where the spinner is assisted with a little additional turn from a dry or dusty surface, Kumble had enough turn on both the stock delivery and his wrong ’un to threaten both edges of the bat. With fielders in close on both sides of the wicket, he was deadly. Kumble was quick through the air, so covering the spin, and getting to the pitch of the ball, was also a precarious balancing act. It wasn’t easy to judge the length perfectly at his pace, so any error was often fatal.

And if you don’t have prodigious turn, you must have great control. That sums up Kumble perfectly. Not only was his control excellent, but also his variation was subtle. A change in line here, a different position on the crease there. All of a sudden, the ball beats you by just half a bat length, and you’re on your way back to the pavilion. Be not ashamed, you’re not alone in falling victim to Anil Kumble’s subtle deception and wily variation. In fact, he was so wily he once prised out 10 batters in a single innings against Pakistan. Jim Laker (and now Ajaz Patel) are the only other bowlers who have achieved this incredible feat in a Test.

To the stats desk we go, and here we find ourselves in a quandary. On the one hand, we have the no small matter of 619 Test wickets. Only Shane Warne and Muttiah Muralidaran have more. Eight 10wm and thirty-five (!) 5wi round out impressive total counting stats. Let’s try that again: really impressive counting stats — only four bowlers have more 10wm and his thirty-five 5wi ranks 12th. So why is Anil Kumble languishing (if one can languish in a Hall of Fame) in the sixties? Unfortunately, Kumble’s average and strike rate tell a rather different story. While Warne and Murali both average under 26, Kumble averages closer to 30. Among Hall of Fame spinners I considered, that average ranks 18th. Nine spinners who missed out on the Hall had a better average. Kumble’s strike rate is 14th among that same list of candidates, again behind five other candidates that didn’t make the cut. Kumble averaged 37.73 in Australia and 41.41 in England. I know these places generally aren’t favourable to spin, but he also averaged 42.41 in Pakistan and 44.63 in Sri Lanka — locations that tend to offer spin-friendly conditions. In fairness, we should point out that Kumble averaged a very respectable 24.88 at home, with a strike rate of under 60. Now, that’s more like it. But his record takes a hit when you factor in his relative lack of success outside of India. 

The verdict

Does it take a fellow leg-spinner to truly appreciate Anil Kumble’s career? I suspect not, but I’m so totally biased in favour of wrist-spinners that I find it hard to grasp whether other cricket fans would appreciate just how good (I think) Kumble was. If you haven’t tried bowling leg-breaks, I think it’s hard to appreciate just how difficult it is to exert the level of control that Anil Kumble exhibited over his career. It’s one thing to be able to land five out of six on a hankerchief in the nets, it’s quite another to be able to do that with the subtle variations in angle of delivery, trajectory, degree of side-spin or overspin that are essential at the first-class or international level.

In addition to his remarkable skill as a bowler, Kumble also led his country to a landmark series victory against Pakistan during a short stint as India’s Test captain. He has so far been the only wrist-spinner to captain India, as well as being the only player in (men’s) Test history to take ten wickets in an innings and score a hundred in his career. Kumble also holds the record for the most Test wickets for an Indian bowler. His career certainly had plenty of firsts, to go along with his leadership.

However, as good as I believe Kumble to be, his Hall of Fame case suffers from his relative lack of success outside of India, and against quality opposition. Kumble only averaged under 25 against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. Indeed, he averaged 25.86 against New Zealand, 29.78 against the West Indies and more than 30 against every other Test nation.

But (but, but, but, but), he had such a long career that it’s hard to look past the gaudy number of wickets, five-fors and ten-fors that he racked up along the way.

That’s why Kumble is so high on this list for a bowler with such a relatively high average, and so low for a bowler with over 600 wickets.

We do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard.

In one word

Subtle

Notes

Bio

Record

Source: ESPN CricInfo

career peak