In this blog post about underrated footballers, The Guardian's Rob Smyth mentions what he calls the Denis Irwin Rule - "If more than 40% of the population say you are underrated, you cannot be underrated."
Similarly, I think enough cricket writers have called Anil Kumble under-appreciated to fully compensate for the original under-appreciation. Still, I notice a tendency among some people to downplay Kumble's 10 for 74, and credit either the dustbowlness of the Ferozeshah Kotla wicket or the trigger-happiness of umpire A.V. Jayaprakash for the wickets he took. Even the Wisden Almanack report.
Here's a video of the spell:
Of the ten wickets, those of Youhana, Salim Malik and Saqlain are classic Kumble dismissals - straight deliveries, catching the batsman either playing down the wrong line or, in the case of Malik, across the line. None of them were helped in any way by the pitch, nor was Ijaz Ahmed's, another straight one, catching his boot on the full.
With Moin Khan, it was the ball that turned just a hint, as opposed to the stock straight one that he played for, aided by a bit of extra bounce. Bounce also accounted for Saeed Anwar and Wasim Akram, both caught at short leg.
Inzamam was entirely at fault for his wicket, playing away from his body.
Which leaves just two batsmen, Shahid Afridi and Mushtaq Ahmed. Mushtaq was unlucky to face the only ball that actually misbehaved - it caused a surface explosion, and reared nastily at his glove. On a fourth day wicket, the occasional cloud of dust is to be expected.
Afridi's caught behind is the only umpiring error I can spot. His bat seems to hit his front pad, and the replays show a gap between bat and ball as it passes. Wrong decision, but hardly a shocker.
So, in effect, one bad decision and one wicket aided by uneven bounce - hardly a biased umpire and a raging turner. Debate by all means whether this was Kumble's greatest spell (I think, for instance, that his seven for 48 in 2004 against Australia at Chennai was even better) but don't discredit his feat with inaccurate claims.
So, in effect, one bad decision and one wicket aided by uneven bounce - hardly a biased umpire and a raging turner. Debate by all means whether this was Kumble's greatest spell (I think, for instance, that his seven for 48 in 2004 against Australia at Chennai was even better) but don't discredit his feat with inaccurate claims.
I don't remember the match in great detail. If the pitch was sub standard and the bounce really uneven, that would have affected the batsmen mentally even if they didn't get out to balls that did crazy stuff as long as they were doing crazy stuff at other times. I still don't see why that would detract from the Kumbul's awesomeness. There have been tons of substandard pitches and just two ten wicket hauls. Simple as that.
ReplyDeleteI strongly remember that spell. And poor Srinath was shit-scared of picking up a wicket by mistake. So he was trying his level best to keep the ball quite wide from the batsmen, who in tun were hell bent on losing their wicket to Srinath, and not Kumble. Kuruku buddhi.
ReplyDeleteAnil Kumble has been a fanatstic test cricketer, Indian Cricket won't be the same without him.
ReplyDeleteWrong Decisions may happens sometimes. Anil Kumble is a great player, i remember the day against england he bowled the match with head injury and india won the match because of him.
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