From the publishers of THE HINDU VOL.31 :: NO.52 :: Dec. 27, 2008 • Contents
	YEAR-END SPECIAL / CRICKET/APPRECIATION The sun has set for them Anil Kumble and Sourav Ganguly may have defied convention but there was no denying their commitment to their craft and to the team’s success. In their retirements, Indian cricket has lost a bit of its steel and a touch of its aura, writes K.C.Vijaya Kumar. K. BHAGYA PRAKASH Anil Kumble… a gentleman cricketer. It is never easy to say good-bye and when India’s two illustrious cricketing sons bid adieu within a fortnight in November, innumerable fans shed tears. Anil Kumble and Sourav Ganguly are as different as they come. Kumble, all dignity and a strong work-ethic, is the kind of man you wished your sister got married to, while Sourav Ganguly, with his heart-on-his-sleeve persona, reminded you of the guy you probably hung out with in your college days. A proven leg-spinner and an elegant left-hand batsman may be a combination of contrasts, but Kumble and Ganguly shared a fierce desire to prove to the World that the Indians are second to none. And when the two walked away, there was no mistaking their sense of timing. The Aussies were laid low and Indian cricket was on an upswing. But before Ganguly and Kumble moved on in their lives, they shared a journey that defied stereotypes and bucked the initial skepticism. Kumble was often compared to India’s famous spin-quartet and later had to cope with the critics’ shifting gaze to Shane Warne and Muttiah Muralitharan. The engineer from Bangalore may not have possessed Warne and Muralitharan’s extravagant talent but he had an attitude that was perhaps unmatched. With subtle variations in length, bounce and angles, Kumble snuffed out batsmen and finished at 619 Test wickets with just Warne and Muralitharan ahead of him and also bagged 337 ODI scalps. In his early days, when Kumble cemented his place with a heap of wickets, critics attributed the windfall to designer pitches prepared under instructions from the Ajit Wadekar-Mohammad Azharuddin combine. ‘He cannot get wickets abroad,’ was the negative refrain. Kumble kept mumbling: “If there are runs on the board we can exert pressure overseas.” He was proved right when the Indian middle-order of Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Ganguly and V. V. S. Laxman, began to express itself abroad. Another challenge was the shoulder surgery that kept him out, while Harbhajan Singh revelled as India’s lead spinner in the home-ambush against Steve Waugh’s men in 2001. Kumble, however, came back as a stronger individual and during India’s tour of Australia in 2003, wrested the ‘leadspinner’ mantle. The Kumble story had got its welcome extension and he battled ahead despite the hurt of being overlooked in the game’s shorter format. In a twilight phase that was high on performance and pathos, Kumble notched his maiden Test hundred at the Oval and also donned the Test skipper’s mantle with grace when a tempest of controversies raged during India’s tour of Australia in 2007. Eventually a sore shoulder and insensitive queries about his retirement gnawed at his heart and true to his dignity, which he maintained with aplomb right through his career, India’s greatest match-winner walked away into the sunset. Ganguly had a similar stop-start to his career, consigned to the sidelines after an insipid tour of Australia in 1991-92. He then bounced back with a hundred on Test debut at Lord’s in 1996 and laughed past cynical whispers of an ‘East-Zone quota-berth’ that alluded to his selection. In the end, he scored 7212 Test runs. Ganguly rose rapidly and along with Tendulkar, forged a formidable opening combine in ODIs, a format in which he also became an all-time great with 11363 runs. Meanwhile, Ganguly the bowler excelled too as evident in his 100 ODI wickets. In 2000, when the match-fixing scandal tore apart Indian cricket’s heart, Ganguly handled the mantle of captaincy adroitly and he helped Virender Sehwag, Zaheer Khan, Harbhajan and Yuvraj Singh to flower. Ganguly may have lost his shirt in a moment of delirium atop the Lord’s balcony, but he never lost sight of victory’s significance. As captain, he emerged as the Nation’s very best, leading in 49 Tests and jotting up 21 victories while suffering 13 losses. A captain’s knock of 144 in Brisbane in 2003 also forced critics, busy pointing out his apparent fallacy against the short-pitched stuff, eat crow. Sadly his form deserted him in the later stages of his captaincy and a public spat with the then coach Greg Chappell eventually forced him out of the squad. Just like Kumble earlier, Ganguly bounced back and consecutive hundreds inclusive of a 239 against Pakistan at home, added a halo to his fairy-tale comeback. He also had the last word on his retirement, announcing it ahead of the series against Australia and then scored a hundred to eventually bow out in the manner he wanted to – as part of a winning Indian team. Kumble and Ganguly may have defied convention but there was no denying their commitment to their craft and to the team’s success. In their retirements, Indian cricket has lost a bit of its steel and a touch of its aura. Printer friendly page   Send this article to Friends by E-Mail Contents • Daily Sports • The Hindu • Business Line • Frontline • Publications • eBooks • Images Copyright © 2008 Sportstar Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of Sportstar.