I have spent many hours looking at Anil, and I still can’t understand how he gets wickets.
I bowled a lot of straight leg spinners, most of them got slogged over mid wicket, some to square leg.
Not once did a coach say to me, hey sh1t ©unt, you bowl alright, but you’re spinning the ball a bit much, hold back and bowl some straight ones.
I don’t understand David Lynch films either, everyone is weird, the music is odd, the plot makes no sense, but at the end of the film I like what I’ve seen.
Same as Kumble.
Of all the great modern spinners he is the one you’d back yourself to get through an over of. You probably wouldn’t, but compared to Warne or Murali, you wouldn’t be completely embarrassed either.
You would miss the straight one though.
Some people don’t consider him a spinner, but some people don’t consider George Dubya a pimple on the ass of soceity.
Were it not for his constant wipes at that sweaty forehead, you would wonder if he were truly a human.
I mean what sort of a spinner bowls that many balls on a good length, with grace, patience and no spin.
Steve Waugh always says you wouldn’t lose sleep the night before facing Kumble.
This is probably true, but the night after facing him many a batsman has looked at the ceiling of a Delhi hotel thinking, “how the fu©k did I miss another straight one”.
He is not so much a bowler, but an artist who uses minimalism to deceive you.
Like Samuel Beckett he strips away the reality of spinners needing to turn the ball a mile. He brings bowling back to the very base level of the human condition.
Kumble turns batting into an introspection of life itself. The batsman has many questions to face during his spell.
Do I go forward, do I go back, is it turning, is it going straight, should I attack, should I defend, when is the right time, is he a leggie, is he an inswinger, can I pick his wrong un, is my pen1s really satisfying my partner?
A normal bowler tries to beat the batsmen, Kumble makes you define the very idiom of bastmanship.
Then he bowls the straight one.
Trust me, it is very hard to bat whilst thinking about idioms, especially when Kumble is probing at you with minimalism.
Off the field he handles himself with a confident quiet calmness, part James Bond, part Riche Benaud, but Indian.
He is smooth, classy, clever, respected and dignified at all times.
Then he bowls the straight one.
Don’t try and understand the straight one, just accept it for what is is, another wicket to the great man.
Uncle J,It is indeed hard to understand how he gets so many wickets… puzzling factor for years… I used to wonder about the same for Mcgrath too… Anil is perhaps one of the kind, very unique in his bowling style.Apparently I heard, he has now developed a ball that would actually turn big LOL… so his guise now is to fool batsmen to think it will go straight or mildly deviate but pick them up playing the wrong line due to the turn. He uses this ball occasionally like a surprise delivery… maybe Clarke’s dismissal was the ball. Interesting eh?
A fine tribute for Kumble. I’m sure we aren’t the only ones wondering how…there must be over 600 wickets wondering the same too.If you ask me today as you might have all these years ago, I’d still say I could face him with ease. He changed the concept of spin bowling for me.If you ask me to be effective the way he bowls, I couldn’t be. And I have to agree with Scorpi here..I always wondered how McGrath took all those wickets…he was never a speed demon…he didn’t swing too much….it’s the just enough that did it for them. They probably read the batsmen bet ter than us and are able to bowl what they want at will.I’ll t ake you back a few decades…there was a bloke called Jimmy Amarnath who would play on the cricket fields of Delhi. For the life of me I could never understand how he picked up wickets and how I got out to him in a club game.
A great tribute, Apprently there are many ways to bowl a straight ones and he seemed to have discovered it. He also disovered a new variable in the equation of bowling that only he could control. Aparently turn was not it.
“He brings bowling back to the very base level of the human condition.”AWESOME.
he is the best example of what hard work…relentless approach and resilience can do when you don’t have as gifted talent as murli and warne…and then you can still bowl straight one. :)
uncle j,and then the straight one! what a trip of a read.
Kumble is the player who has commitment level up his sleeves more than 100 % all the while. He is one of the player who has earned the respect.A very simple person who can handle any kind of pressure with a smile on his face.every one knows how well he handled the Symo-Bhajji controversary.I take a Bow Anil kumble!1 Hatts off to u
the straighter one is called a “top-spinner” FYI
Anon, he has 4 variations of the straight one, he has a zooter, a slider, a top spinner, and a faster leg spinner that doesn’t spin. The toppie is the easiest to pick as the angle of the hand is different. For the others it is the same as a leggie.
Jrod – this is the best homage to anyone I have ever read. It is a classic. It deserves to be printed on a gold sheet, and the sheet then needs to be frozen in dry ice, and then hung in a basement under 50 floors od lead so it is never destroyed. I am reading this piece for the 100th time. Thanks for writing this. Hope you win the Nobel of sports writing.
SO nice to know, there are many out there who are perplexed by the straight ball phenomenon. I applaud Kumble on his tactic of calling himself a spinner, thats what gets every one fooled. Besides batsmen are embarassed to tell their colleagues that they were fooled.
Kumble and the ball that turned another urban legend.
The only wickets I used to think I understood was when he’d bowl tailenders and crap english batsmen with the flipper, otherwise I don’t have a clue how he took so many.
Serious shit he is ….
The guy still has it.IPL south africa later.