HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANIL KUMBLE: Former India Test captain Anil Kumble may not be the biggest turner of the ball but the legendary spinner surely single-handedly turned many games in his team’s favour. One of these matches was the Feroz Shah Kotla Test against Pakistan in February 1999. With the champion crossing the half-century mark with his age, we celebrate his 52nd birthday by looking back at the historical Delhi Test when Kumble became only the second bowler after Jim Laker in the history of Test cricket to take 10 wickets in a single inning of a match.
BCCI had shared the video of Kumble taking the 10 wickets on February 7 this year to mark the anniversary of the day. Here is the link:
#OnThisDay in 1999, #TeamIndia spin legend @anilkumble1074 became the first Indian bowler and second overall to scalp all the 10 wickets in a Test innings. ????????Watch that fantastic bowling display ???????? pic.twitter.com/OvanaqP4nU
— BCCI (@BCCI) February 7, 2021
After losing the first test to the neighbours in Chennai by a heartbreakingly close 12-run-margin, the hosts were on the back-foot. In the second test, India got off to a reasonably good start with 252 runs on the board in the first inning. The visitors in response could only manage 172 runs.
To make things worse for Pakistan, Sadgopan Ramesh with his 92 runs and Sourav Ganguly with an unbeaten 62 runs, gave the opposing team the mighty task to chase down 420 runs to win the game.
The improbable chase commenced with a courageous 101-run-opening stand between Shahid Afridi and Saeed Anwar before Kumble came in and webbed a magical spell through the visitor’s line-up causing a carnage, taking all the 10 wickets in the innings.
The destruction started with the wicket of Afridi, who got out in the 25th over after scoring 41 runs. This opened the floodgates and the score went from 101/0 to 128/6 in no time.
Wasim Akram did show some struggle with his 38 in the latter part pf the innings, but it did not take much time for Kumble to clean up the innings for 207 ensuring a 212-run-win for India. The victory was also special for being the first in tests in 19 years.
Kumble has scalped 619 wickets in his 132-tests long career for India and is currently the 4th highest wicket-taker in test cricket after Muttiah Muralitharan of Sri Lanka (800), Shane Warne from Australia (708), and James Anderson of England (632).
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