Anil Kumble
Anil Kumble was to bowling what Dravid is to batting. Dravid redefined batting by not playing a shot, Kumble redefined spin bowling by not spinning the ball. Dravid was associated with the straight bat; Kumble with the straight ball.It is an irony that a man named after a circle preferred to bowl straight. This wasn't because he couldn't spin the ball. One of the cleverest bowlers of all time, Kumble estimated early on in his career that a leg break- googly bowler could beat batsmen only half the time- either when he played a leg break mistaking it for a googly or when he played a googly mistaking it for a legbreak. He discovered that if he bowled straight, a batsman playing either for the googly or the leg break could be foxed.Consequently, his leg breaks never turned. He had a variation- the deadly flipper which was bowled with the same action as the leg break and didn't turn. In fact, it was identical to the leg break in all respects, except that he called it a flipper.To understand how this enabled him to get wickets, one should remember again that Kumble was one of the cleverst cricketers to have played the game. Having read in his childhood how Clarie Grimett used to snap his fingers, thus leading to the impression that he had bowled a flipper, and then bowl a leg break, Kumble used to do the same.The batsmen, having read the Grimett story themselves, would realise that Kumble was bowling the leg break while pretending to bowl the flipper.Howeve, since they also knew that the two were the same, this paradox would so confuse them that they would be dazed for a while. One second of indecision against Kumble would of course be deadly.Kumble's moment of glory came when he took 10 wickets in an innings against Pakistan. The umpiring decisions were all correct, though one of them, that of Akram being given out leg before wicket when Younis was in fact the batsman facing, is sometimes debated.On Indian tracks against lefthanders in the second innings, Kumble was deadly, especially if the track had stones planted on it at crucial spots. He used to call them 'his precious stones."Kumble is particularly noted for his dive. The dive was always like the rotation of the windmill which allows the wind to pass through. Stopping the ball was never the priority. After all, why risk getting injured when the whole team depended on you?Never one to stand in the way of young talent, Kumble has decided to call it a day when people ask why and not why not. In an announcement that made his sacrifice and quest towards perfection abundantly clear, he said in a recenrt conference that he would retire after taking eleven wickets in an innings.When a journalist reminded him that it had never happened so far, he said that that was precisely the reason why he wanted to be the first to do it. Since he had taken 10 wickets in an innings once, he hoped to be able to replicate the feat, since everyone knew that No. 11 was the easiest to get out. His logic was as sharp as ever.A career that started with a paradox has ended in one- people wonder how this gentle giant, this non-spinning spinner can simultaneously be the proud master of world cricket while being a humble servant of Indian cricket. Such are the questions that this cricketer who had all the answers will leave for us.All said and done, Kumble is undoubtedly the finest spinner to ever play cricket and the second best leg spinner India has ever produced.
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Venkatesh Prasad
Prasad had a fascination for the theory of relativity and spent his career examining whether there was a lower limit for speed. The speed at which Prasad bowled has now been accepted as the lowest possible velocity possible.Prasad had a very good record against many batsmen, especially the ones he had never bowled to. Among batsmen he did bowl to, Gary Kirsten was his bunny.It all started when Prasad bowled Gary Kirsten in the second innings with a ball he bowled in the South African first innings. Kirsten was so bamboozled by this incident that he used to quake in his boots when facing Prasad later on.Kirsten said once that facing Prasad was his most educative experience on the Cricket field, since he used to read the autobiographies of famous batsmen when waiting for the ball to arrive. He claimed to have read more books in this fashion than in his entire life outside the stadium.Frequently, Prasad bowled so slow that all six of his balls in the over were in the air at the same time. This enabled India to take 6 new balls. This was his primary contribution to the team and the reason why his slow ball was considered to be such an asset.Prasad's batting was less of an asset. In fact, he was such a horrible batsmen that even net bowlers refused to bowl to him, saying they'd rather bowl at the stumps without a batsman.To improve his batting credentials without taking recourse to any other bowler having to bowl at him, he devised the unique training regimen of bowling in the morning, having lunch and a siesta and returning late afternoon to face the balls that he had bowled in the morning. His batting against himslef improved by leaps and bounds. However, facing himself was hardly the ideal preparation to face any bowler who bowled faster than a lethargic snail and consequently, his batting at the international stage hardly showed any signs of improvement.He worked on his fielding to make up, and toward the end of his career, so improved his fielding that he was able to reach as close to any ball in the outfield as possible without actually being near enough to stopping it. This gave Indian cricket its second enduring image of the 90s along with the Kumble dive, that of the ball crossing the boundary and Prasad running past it just after the nick of time. The distance between him and the ball has now been accepted by physicists as the shortest distance possible.After a glorious few years, Prasad lost his place in the side when the selectors found out that the years had taken their toll and that he had lost his lack of pace. He announced his retirement when his bowling slowed down so much that he had diffulty in getting the ball to come out of his hand.
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Ajit Agarkar
Ajit Agarkar is the only cricketer to have his biography started during his playing career. However, the book is yet to be finished because a chapter on three reasons why he's not a total waste as a cricketer is still not completed even after three months of it having been started.Agarkar is an animal and bird lover with a particular liking for ducks. A team mate challenged him to eat duck for five meals in a row. He lost the bet, but made amends on the cricket field.Widely panned for being short and wide all the time, he once bowled eighty balls without even one being short and wide. This was particularly impressive when you consider that all of them were either short or wide. He went for 137 runs, but not before he had demonstrated his point.As a bowler, his variety was bewildeing. His arsenal included bouncers outside off and down leg, full tosses, overpitched deliveries, noballs and wides. He is the only bowler to have achieved the quadruple (the feat of bowling at least one wide each down leg side and outside off stump to both lefties and righties in the same match) 50 times.He used to practise with a red carpet laid out on the entire pitch. He used to be able to pitch the ball anywhere outside the carpet at will, in keeping with the great traditions of Indian fast bowlers. This used to be called Agarkar's red carpet welcome to batsmen.
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Sachin Tendulkar
Though considered to be among the modern greats, Sachin Tendulkar has many weaknesses.For example, he is particularly susceptible against fast bowling. Once, Shoaib Akhtar bowled him with a ball faster than the speed of light. Some attributed this to the fact that at those speeds, the mass of the ball becomes infinite, making it impossible to play. Sachin himself came up with the lamest of excuses saying that he had been unable to spot the ball.His second weakness is a complete inability to play the unplayable ball.But causing most concern to his fans is that he looks totally lost against both Shane Warne's doosra and Murali's googly. In the Adelaide Test match of 2003-2005, Murali bowled him thrice in an innings with a googly. Warne went one better by taking a rare hattrick- he had Sachin bowled, lbw and caught in the deep all in one ball.Tendulkar's other main weaknesses are listed below:1. Can't play spin2. Can't play left arm medium pace3. Can't play incoming ball from the right hand medium pacer4. Can't play outgoing balls from the right hand medium pacer5. Can't play short/full length balls/ yorkers.Also, he has a tendency to be caught behind when playing on the off side, lbw when playing on the legside and bowled when playing straight.It is a mystery how he has scored so many runs, one that has baffled analysts for long.He cannot play under pressure- his matchwinning innings at Sharjah were due to the fact that a sand storm had reduced the atmospheric pressure.Contrary to poplular belief, he did not play well in the crucial World Cup Match against Pakistan- the Pakistani players are even worse under pressure.Tendulkar has had a colourful career. His contests with leading bowlers have made compelling viewing though most of them have got the better of him, sometimes using unconventional methods.Famously, McGrath came up with the ace strategy of bowling to him with an invisible ball. Tendulkar had no answer to that delivery which McGrath insists was an inswinger and was trapped in front of the stumps. It was a victory for the bowler, who prior to the delivery had asked Tendulkar to hit it if he could.Umpire Buckner was involved in this controversial dismissal. In his autobiography, "A law unto himself", he mentions that that "Tendulkar played down the wrong line", was "palpably plumb" and that that was "the best ball that he had never seen."Tendulkar's bowling has proved to be very useful. He counts Inzy Ul Haq among his bunnies, so fact which was immortalised in a recent newspaper heading, "End-UL-HAQ kar?"Such complimentary headings cannot hide the fact that Tendulkar has himself been the bunny of many bowlers- McGrath dismissed him 540 times, which forms a major proportion of his 500 Test wickets. Razzaq, Pollock and Kumble have also had a lot of success against him at the international level.Surprisingly, Buckner has dismissed him more number of times than even McGrath. What is stunning has been that Buckner has dismissed him in every way possible- many times lbw, equally as many times caught behind, a couple of times for obstructing the non striker, thrice for handling the bat, four times for obstructing the sun, seven times bat before wicket, twice for running on the pitch and once for beating Lara to 10,000 runs.
Buckner has also given him out once, since he predicted that he would show dissent when being given out. Tendulkar promptly protested, thus completely vindicating Buckner's decision.In addition, he has also got him out in modes that are too ridiculous to be discussed here.
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Ravi Shastri
Ravi Shastri once played an innings so glittering that that led Edison to invent the bulb. This was when he hit a 100 in 20 balls against Germany. The last 50 runs were particularly breathtaking and came off just 35 balls.Shastri was the first to complete the all rounder's double of clean bowling himself 510 times and hitting 100 sixes of his own bowling. He was such a supreme all rounder that he frequently used to clean bowl himself and hit a six off himself off the same ball- a feat that was unheard of till then.However, he soon found that he was the ideal spin bowler. This discovery was made when he once pitched a ball outsde the stadium and turned it so much that it hit off stump.Another time, called on to break an opening partnership between Shoaib Malik and Imran Farhat that was assuming threatening proportions, he did the unthinkable. He got so much drift with his very first delivery and gave it so much flight that the ball pitched in the dressing room and dismissed Inzy, who was due to bat one down, leg before wicket. That magic ball left Pakistan reeling at 735/1 without either opener having been dismissed. Such an instance had never happened before in the annals of cricket and has never happened since.Umpire David Shepherd later wrote that it was "absolutelty plumb", saying it would have "gone on to clip leg stump". On a dead pitch not offering much turn, it was a sterling effort.As a spinner, he had it all- flight, loop, turn, bite, bounce, drift, nip and real purchase off the wicket. The amount of turn he extracted meant that the wicketkeeper had to field at point most of the time. He got so much purchase off the wicket that he used to finish all his shopping during the match.As a batsman, he was also a proponent of the SPCB movement- Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Balls. He used to charge down the track and defend balls with a dead bat.He used to see the ball early and play it late- so much so that he sometimes saw the ball before the bowler bowled it and played it after it hit the stumps.Though a defensive player at times, he could drive beautifully- especially when he wasn't drunk. This explains why he was given a car in the World Championship of Cricket in 1985.
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Javagal Srinath
The toughest five balls he bowled were the ones he bowled wide off the off stump so that Kumble could pick up the last wicket after he had taken nine wickets against Pakistan. For an accurate bowler like him, it would have been near impossible. He relished the challenge so much that he bowled similar balls throughout his career afrter that.Such was his control that he used to practise with a hanky on the pitch on a good length spot and not hit it throughout practice, even if he bowled 10000 balls. This proves the awesome variety of his bowling.
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Saurav Ganguly
He famously hit an explosive hundred against SL in Taunton with so many sixes that the residents of the town thought they were being bombed.Towards the end of his career, Ganguly spent 20% of the time convincing the media that he'd never fought with Greg Chappell, 20% convincing them that he didn't have a problem with the short ball, and 60% convincing them that he'd never fought with Greg Chappel about having a problem with the short ball. The remaining time he spent in improving his rapport with the coach and comfort factor against the short ball. His inclusion/exclusion in the team was used by scientists at the University of Michigan as the starting point for random number generation. It is said that Dravid used to carry a coin around with him and toss it to determine whether Ganguly should play or not. His career ended when Greg Chappel suggested a new system whereby the coin was substituted by two dice. If the sum of the two scores on rolling them was greater than 14, Ganguly would play.Ganguly also played soccer. Dravid had a high regard for Ganguly's abilities as a soccer player, once paying him the ultimate compliment- that if he played soccer with God, God would be off side first and then Ganguly. His natural instinct to kick the ball led to a large number of lbw dismissals while playing cricket.A wonderful defender, he could play on either wing. By an amazing coincidence, like in cricket, Ganguly alternated between being left out and being right back in soccer too.
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Rahul Dravid
The great batsmen make fielders redundant by the brilliance of their stroke play. Dravid is the greatest of them all- he makes fielders redundant by refusing to play any shot.Most batsmen have no shot as their favourite. Dravid's favourite is no shot. While other batsmen would play bread and butter shots, he would offer none and hence got the nickname of "Jammie".He is a textbook cricketer- a champion at book cricket, which is also the only game where he ever scored more than two runs in one try.Dravid has always been a tough nut to crack for opposing captains. This is particularly true of one-day cricket where over the first half of his career, opposing captains worried themselves sick about how to get him out.However, he evolved as a batsman, like all champion cricketers do, and posed tougher questions towards the second half of his career when captains started losing sleep over how to not get him out, since they felt their best chance was to keep him at the crease.In an ODI final recently, when Dravid was caught at point, he had faced 60 balls and had a strike rate of 5. The captain, who desperately hoped that the fielder would drop the ball, promptly admonished the fielder saying that "You've just caught the World cup, my son."Dravid is famous for knowing where his offstump is. Once, when Lee had sent his offstump cartwheeling out of the ground, he was able to locate it in the crowd because he still knew where his off stump was.Dravid's batting is built on sound fundamentals and the simple strategy of boring the bowler to death and putting the fielders to sleep. He then attempts to find the gaps between them.Dravid is so strong on the leg side that 0-12 fields are frequently employed to stop him. He plays the swivel pull beautifully- eyes on the ball, rocking back, judging the length early. It is a shot of great beauty, especially in the rare instances when he succeeds in making contact with the ball too.Dravid's batting philosophy in Tests is simple. Give the first 90 overs each day to the bowler, see out even the horrible balls and and then look to dominate. This is not because of a limited repertoire of shots. He had all the shots in the book, but never plays even one in the interest of the team.
Wisden, talking about his debut innings, remarked that "Dravid, a compulsive leaver of the ball, played an innings so breathtaking that it was supposed to be the best innings by him in England till then" and added that "so pretty was the innings that it was even prettier than Ganguly's cherubic face when he was in a deep slumber at the non-striker's end. Fielders stood rooted to the ground, maybe because they figured out they weren't required since no shot was being played. Some say that they were actually in a stupor induced daze. It is even rumoured that a couple were sleepwalking."He frequently dropped anchor, doing to the team's score what an anchor does to a ship.But his finest hour was an innings that is still talked off with awe by people fortunate enough to see it. India were in a crisis as usual. In an innings of vintage class, Dravid showcased his superb defensive technique- getting in line with the ball and playing it with a still head and a dead bat. He proceeded to do this ball after ball, six times in a row.So complete was his mastery that he even defended balls which were wide outside off and down leg, which would have been called wides. It was such an astonishing display under the circumstances that even the fielding team purportedly patted him on the back after the over.Nothing- not even the docile nature of the track, the utter ineffectiveness of the bowling or the fact that India required 24 runs in 12 balls at the beginning of that over- could shake his resolve. He was a batsman well and truly in the zone.Sadly, Tendulkar, uninspired by such mastery of defence, chickened out and took the easy way out by hitting the last six balls for four. As ever, in a country that refuses to acknowledge any other batsman, all the plaudits went to him.
Borrowed HJWBB
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