Anil Kumble versus Pakistan, Delhi, 1999

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. 

Medium-fast

This morning, Star Cricket telecast the highlights of the 1996 World Cup group match between India and Sri Lanka at Ferozeshah Kotla – the match where Jayasuriya and Kaluwitharana destroyed Manoj Prabhakar’s international career.
I’ve never seen Manoj Prabhakar bowl well; although I must say that all I’ve seen of his bowling are highlights packages from India’s 1990 tour to England, and now this match. He bowled at about 67 miles per hour, and needed a run-up as long as Waqar Younis or Wes Hall to achieve this speed.
Usually, bowlers who clock 67 miles per hour are placid-looking chaps who, as the cliché goes, know their limitations and bowl stump-to-stump. Manoj Prabhakar instead looked like he wanted to splatter the innards of batsmen all over the sightscreen at the other end and imagined himself easily capable of doing so.
As everyone knows, Manoj Prabhakar ended this match, and his international career, bowling off spin.
Immediately after this match, Star Cricket played the highlights of Sachin Tendulkar's 177 at Trent Bridge a few months after the World Cup. It made me chuckle, because here was another 67mph trundler who seemed to believe himself the spiritual heir to Frank Tyson - Dominic Cork.
Sachin punched Cork off the backfoot repeatedly and clinically, down the ground, through the off side and on. When he got bored, he waited a little while longer and cut him off his stumps, or moved across and whipped him off his legs. Despite all this, Cork continued to run in every ball with the aggression and flared nostrils of a slightly deranged bull.