With Jumbo at the helm, Team India in good hands

Jumbo to his friends, Anil Kumble, India’s most successful bowler would start his one-year-contract with Team India as its coach from July this year when it leaves for a four test tour of the West Indies under stewardship of Virat Kohli.

His legendary determination and commitment to the team’s cause as captain, as player or as a teammate must have made his former teammates Saurav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman choose Kumble over former Team India director Ravi Shastri. Many would recall that Kumble travelled all the way to the United States to meet Yuvraj Singh, when latter battled cancer. His meeting with Yuvraj motivated the cancer survivor to put himself on the recovery path and don India colours again.

As team leader Kumble showed extra-ordinary qualities to revive a down and out outfit following the crushing defeat in 2007 World Cup, and won home Tests against Pakistan, South Africa and Australia and a famous away game in Perth. Kumble rebuilt the Indian team and handed over the reins to a young Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Almost 10 years later, Dhoni is leaving the team he built in the safe hands of his predecessor.

Playing in an era when he had wizards and magicians as Shane Warne and Muttaiah Murlidharan as rivals, Kumble stood his ground with hard work, impeccable line and length and continuously adding new weapons to his arsenal including a yorker for the tail enders. 

His performance of 10 wickets for 74 runs in the winter of 1999 against Pakistan at historic Feroze Shah Kotla, which incidentally this reporter watched from the Willingdon pavilion, was rated by Wisden Almanac as second best individual bowling performance.

Coming from Bangalore, the city of legendary Indian spinners Erapalli Prasanna and Bhagwat Subramanian Chandrashekhar, Kumble managed to create his own identity and style. Not a spinner in a conventional mould he overcame challenge of “more talented” leg-spinning contemporaries like Narendra Hirwani and Laxman Sivaramakrishnan to remain a permanent fixture in the Indian team from the 1993 till his retirement 15 years later. He hunted in tandem  with the equally unconventional off spinner Harbhajan Singh.

Kumble complimented the hot headed Sardar from Punjab with his cool temperament and firm demeanour. Harbhajan could never again weave the magic which he did in company of the Banglorean after Jumbo retired. 

So influential was his presence in the dressing room that the Indian team entrusted him with the responsibility of negotiating with the cricket board when contracts for players were introduced for the first time.

Commanding trust and respect for his qualities both as player and a human being, Kumble would hopefully end the trend of having foreign coaches for Team India. Jumbo has both the calibre and commitment to keep India on a winning track.