I’ll be back in three weeks, says the smiling assassin

‘‘The doctors in Antigua (which incidentally is home to a number of Indian doctors) put the tooth back in place. I had taken the blow on the front lower jaw. The bone there had cracked and the jaw hurt terribly.

‘‘The doctors temporarily wired the lower jaw to hold it in place. I was loaded with pain killers. I cannot chew food and have been on liquid diet since,’’ the brave Kumble added.

Kumble, who rose above the injury to put one last gigantic effort to infuse some life into the match, horrified everybody by taking the field in the post-tea session of the third day.

The West Indian batting great, Brian Lara, must surely have thought he was playing a ghoulish bowler who looked a combination of ‘The Mummy’ and a right arm Bishan Singh Bedi when he saw a Kumble whose face was swathed in bandages running up to bowl. Surely just the sight of an ‘embalmed’ Kumble face must have frightened Lara into surrendering his wicket!

While cricketers, writers and commentators poured heaps of praise at his courage and commitment, a badly hurt Kumble was fighting his own ghosts.

Shabbily treated on the tour despite being the highest-wicket taker in the team, Kumble, who would otherwise have salivated at the opportunity of bowling with the luxury of a 500-plus total for the first time overseas, was left trying to boost his own punctured confidence.

Back in Bangalore, Kumble, who just last year was forced out of the game with an injured rotator cuff, was once again trying to put the pieces in his life together again.

‘‘Right now I need to shrug off the jet lag. I visited the doctors and they are to perform an oral and maxilo facial surgery on me on the morrow. Dr Kishore Naik, whom I consulted on arrival, will put the two bones on my lower jaw together. The doctors will put a plate to hold it,’’ said Kumble.

‘‘Apparently they do these surgeries quite regularly.

‘‘I will continue to be on liquid diet for a while as even after the surgery it would be painful for me to chew food. I will rest for a week to 10 days, after which I will resume all my regular activities, including batting and bowling in the nets, running, jumping, etc. The bones themselves will completely heal in just three weeks,’’ said Kumble as he dissected his injury, the proposed operation and the recovery period with the precision of the engineer he is.