New Delhi: It was February 7, 1999 when legendary Indian leg-spinner Anil Kumble became the only second bowler in world cricket after England’s Jim Laker to scalp all 10 wickets in an innings.
During the second Test of the two-match series against Pakistan, Kumble picked up all the wickets at the Feroz Shah Kotla.
India had lost the first Test in Chennai by a slim margin of 12 runs and were in a must-win situation in the Delhi Test.
After posting 252 in their first innings, the hosts came out with an exceptional bowling performance to bowl out Pakistan for 172. In the second innings, Sadgopan Ramesh (96) and Sourav Ganguly (62*) scored gritty half centuries as India posted a 420-run target for the visitors.
The visitors got off to a steady start in their chase as openers Shahid Afridi and Saeed Anwar put on 101 runs for the first wicket. The match seemed to be in balance until Kumble was introduced into the attack and wreaked havoc on the Pakistani batting line-up.
He first dismissed Afridi (41) in the 25th over. After that, India didn’t let go off the foot of the paddle through Kumble and Pakistan were reduced to 128/6 in no time.
The leg-spinner kept on taking wickets at regular intervals and it was in the 61st over that he entered history books by dismissing Wasim Akram.
He finished with exceptional figures of 10/74 from 26.3 overs and helped India register a famous win by 212 runs.
Sunday, BCCI posted the video of all the wickets which Kumble had taken in that historic match on their Twitter handle and wrote: “#OnThisDay in 1999, #TeamIndia spin legend Anil Kumble became the first Indian bowler and second overall to scalp all the 10 wickets in a Test innings. Watch that fantastic bowling display.”
Kumble, after representing India in 132 Tests and scalping 619 wickets, announced his retirement from international cricket in 2008.
The 50-year-old is third in the list of leading wicket takers in Test cricket behind Sri Lanka’s Muttiah Muralitharan (800) and Australia’s Shane Warne (708).
IANS
