I could never compete with Muralitharan or Warne: Kumble

Being the third highest wicket-taker in history of Test cricket is no mean achievement but former India captain Anil Kumble wishes he had the skills of his two greatest contemporaries – Shane Warne and Muttiah Muralitharan.

“Yeah, Warne and Murali competition, I don’t know whether I looked at it as a competition, but I could never compete with a Murali or a Shane Warne. Wish, I had the skills that they (Warne and Murali) had,” Kumble told the mediapersons, after being inducted into the ICC’ Hall of Fame’ at MCG, here today.

“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," said Kumble.

As he introspected his 18-year journey in international cricket, starting 1990, Kumble did attribute a lot of it to the core of the team that included him, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman.

“That core group stayed for a long time and we started to believe that we can win against any opposition. To this five, 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 recollected. For him, the greatest batsman he has ever bowled to is Brian Lara and he recalled one incident.

“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 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,” one could see the admiration in his eyes.

Asked whether he could relate to any of the current generation cricketers, with whom, Kumble instantly took Ashwin’s name.

“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,” Kumble said during an interaction ahead of his induction into the ‘ICC’s Hall of Fame’.

For Kumble, more Ashwin plays in overseas conditions, the better he will get.

“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. I often hear an argument that in overseas conditions, we should play one spinner in Test matches.

“My logic is that if a set of bowlers are winning you matches in India, why not play them abroad,” one could feel from where it was coming as under Sourav Ganguly’s captaincy, it used to be a case of either Kumble or Harbhajan Singh in the playing XI.

On a different note, Kumble showed a lot of confidence in the current Indian side and predicted that it would reach the last four stage.

“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,” said Kumble.

PTI