Former skipper Anil Kumble on Saturday pitched for spin bowlers in away series saying that India should field its best bowlers and not make selection slave to conditions and pitches.
“My logic is that if a set of bowlers is winning you matches in India, why not play them abroadIJ,” he asked journalists at a press conference organised to talk about his induction into the ICC’s Hall of Fame.
Kumble will be accorded the honour in the innings break at the Sunday blockbuster between India and South Africa at the majestic MCG. He will be only the fourth Indian to get this honour after it was instituted in 2009.
He also said Ravichandran Ashwin reminded him of himself in approach and work ethics. “I see a lot of myself in Ashwin. He is a fantastic cricketer with a lot of work ethic. Obviously, he is a far better batsman than me. like me, Ashwin has also been criticised for not getting wickets overseas. But again, he has a lot of chance of improving,” he added.
But for Ashwin to develop as an annihilator of oppositions, Kumble said he needs to get more matches overseas. “The only way to get better is to play more in overseas conditions. If he gets more chances and gets the confidence, he will certainly improve,” he said, adding that with the likes of Ashwin India’s present squad is a match-winner.
“This team led by Mahendra Singh Dhoni knows how to win matches in pressure situations. I would put my money on this team reaching the semifinals and they certainly have the potential to go all the way. They would in any case reach quarterfinals and from there it can be anybody’s game,” Kumble said.
The greatest batsman he has ever bowled to he said was Brian lara. “Brian lara was blessed with the ability to hit four or five shots of the same delivery. Once right here at the MCG, during a match played in memory of victims affected by Tsunami, I was bowling to lara. I bowled a delivery where he charged down the track after I had flighted one. Once he came down the track, he realized that he had misjudged the trajectory of the ball. Any other player would have missed it and got out. But lara swept that delivery for boundary and I knew that nothing could be done,” he recounted.
Coming in with a whole lot of old world charm, memories of the bygone era, humour and a smile to adorn his formal suit, Kumble said though he would always be connected with cricket, he’s far away from any coaching role with Team India mostly due to the demanding schedule.
Though sitting pretty on the record of being the third highest wicket-taker in history of Test cricket, Kumble said he would die to have the bowling skills of Shane Warne and Muttiah Muralitharan.
“I’ve had some great friendships with Warney and even more with Murali because we played a lot more. We saw each other a lot more. Murali would always call up and congratulate me after every milestone, and he would always possibly be 30, 40 wickets to the next milestone. So I would also congratulate him saying, Murali, another three Test matches I’ll reach your 30 wickets, so congratulations.
It was always a healthy friendship that we had, and it still continues. But I could never compete with a Murali or a Shane Warne. Wish, I had the skills that they had,” he said, adding that his journey was largely without any help from coaches and much of what he learned was from getting feedback by bowling to batters like Sachin, Sehwag, Dravid and laxman in the nets.
“That core group stayed for a long time and we started to believe that we can win against any opposition. To this, you can add Virender Sehwag, Javagal Srinath, Harbhajan Singh and Zaheer Khan, we had a fantastic bunch. I always felt fortunate that I only bowled to Tendulkar, Sehwag or Dravid in the nets and not in international matches. Actually, Tendulkar, Dravid or Sehwag later kind of became my “coach” as they would tell me after playing me in the nets as to where I was going wrong and stuff like that,” Kumble recalled.