Watching Pakistan playing India is truly a unique experience. From 1952 when Pakistan played its first ever Test at Feroz Shah Kotla in Delhi to now, the interest may have slightly diminished but the enthusiasm amongst the supporters of both the teams remains intact.
This is the ground where Khan Mohammad, Pakistan’s fiery paceman, bowled the first ball for Pakistan and Nazar Mohammad scored the first runs for his country. The rest, of course, is history.
However, the feat that overshadows all achievements on this ground is current skipper Anil Kumble ‘perfect ten’ against Pakistan in 1999.
His 10-wicket haul in a single innings of that 1999 Test made him only the second man after England off-spinner Jim Laker to accomplish such a feat.
Laker pulverised Australia in 1956 at Old Trafford by taking 10 wickets in an innings and nine more in the same match to finish with a world record 19 scalps in a Test. And 43 years later, Kumble rewrote the history books of the game with 10 for 74 in a match that India won by 212 runs to level the two-match series then. That was Pakistan’s first series in India in 12 years. Only a week later Pakistan beat India at Kolkata in the first ever Asian Test Championship which was not a part of the series.
Watching someone get 10 wickets in an innings or score a triple hundred or achieve a hat-trick is always a privilege.
I was lucky that I was part of that memorable match when Kumble wrote his name in history. Pakistan was set to score 420 runs to win that Test at Kotla, having won the first Test at Chennai. Everything looked rosier as Shahid Afridi and Saeed Anwar struck the cord.
At 90 for 0 in 20 overs, Pakistan was on the right track when Kumble switched ends to bowl from the pavilion end. He soon had Afridi caught at the wicket and Ijaz Ahmed leg before, both dicey decisions from umpire Jayaprakash who also hails from Kumble’s hometown in Bangalore.
In the next over Kumble had two more wickets, that of Inzamam and the then Yousuf Youhana. At tea Pakistan had lost Saeed Anwar and Moin Khan and were tottering at 176-6.
After tea, Kumble kept the pressure on, taking four more. Salim Malik, Mushtaq Ahmed, Saqlain Mushtaq and the last man out Wasim Akram were his remaining victims.
Kumble is still in business but Jim Laker of Surrey and England is no more. He died of cancer. After his retirement he became a BBC TV commentator and occasionally would umpire in our cricket writer club of England’s matches.
I started to know him well, he was a gentle giant and as modest as India’s Kumble.
