Kumble announces retirement

So Kumble has announced his retirement from test cricket and in my view he has taken the right decision as he was struggling with his form, and injuries and because of which it looked like it was affecting his captaincy too. Whatever it is he will go down as one of the best cricketers India have ever produced and no doubt India will miss him as a bowler. His greatest strength was that he would always be at the batsmen as he was relentless and just like all good bowlers do he hated to give runs as he would bowl maidens and make it uncomfortable for the batsmen as they would start to worry about when the next run will come and these attributes helped him to become a very good bowler.


I first saw Anil in 93 when he tormented our batsmen and one has to say that England's batsmen looked clueless against him. At that time he used to be a lot more quicker through the air and used flipper to great effect, I still remember Blakey the keeper from Yorkshire looking like a club cricketer everytime Anil would bowl at him as he would go back to all those flippers Kumble used to bowl and was getting out L.B.W or bowled, even others like Smith, Stewart etc never looked comfortable, only Hick and surprisingly Lewis handled him a touch better. After that series he continued to be potent especially at home but there came a time in mid 90's when players like Desilva started to play him as a medium pacer as result Kumble suffered what with others too taking the same route against him but the fighter Kumble is he came back with a vengeance when Aussies toured India in 98 as he played a major role in helping India win as well as bowling that monumental spell against Pakistan at his favourite ground Kotla when he became only the second bowler in the history of the game to take all 10 wickets in a innings still doubts persisted about his class away from home as he struggled in England, Australia, South Africa what with tracks not turning much or getting uneven and in 01 there was a setback for him as he was out with shoulder injury but Kumble is like a gladiator who has a never say die spirit as he worked hard on his fitness and came back stronger as in Australia in 03 he took lots of wickets by adding variety to his bowling like developing a potent wrong un, and occasionally he would flight the ball to bring the batsmen forward and make him drive. He continued to perform consistently at home and away as for eg. he did a decent job in England in 07 and during that year itself he got the chance to captain the side and started of well against Pakistan with a series win and in Australia in 08 he handled the fallouts of Sydney fiasco pretty well, his bowling too was good in Australia. Unfortunately for him his performance after the tour of Australia started to decline and injuries did not help, especially in the on going series against Australia he looked out of sorts as a bowler which also looked like was affecting his captaincy. Kumble realised that his time was up and took the right decision of retiring from the game.

All in all Kumble was a great ambassador for the game who with hard work and dedication became a very good bowler which is proved by the fact that he got over 600 wickets which is a phenomenal achievement and he was successful in onedayers too. Well done Kumble, I salute you.