Remarkable first day in office

He detested Mahendra Singh Dhoni standing up to him. On this day...

He detested Mahendra Singh Dhoni standing up to him. On this day, Sourav Ganguly certainly commanded respect as a seamer. An extended follow-through, exaggerated appeals for leg before was backed on the proper and inverted C swing he enjoyed with the semi-new ball. His threat as a third seam option in Team India was hinged on Anil Kumble, and never the guy to shy away from giving due credit to the deserving, Ganguly gave it to his captain. 8220;What I like about Kumble8217;s captaincy is that he bowled me for 12 overs,8221; he says, humbly.

Very few would have tossed the ball to Ganguly after lunch, and resist the temptation of getting his strike bowlers. Kumble did, and Ganguly gave him Mohammad Yousuf8217;s wicket. 8220;He handed the ball out to me when the ball was getting a lot of assistance. Anil is a fantastic captain, and he did a great job on first day. I always thought he had the capability of becoming a good captain,8221; admits Ganguly.

One amongst the three skippers he8217;s played under has given him A, the other two 8212;Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar8212; admired his skills silently. First day in match situation, Anil Kumble was spot on, and enjoyed an eventful run; whether it was getting the huddle organised, coming up with varied field placements or using his bowlers8212;most importantly, Munaf Patel.

Handling Munaf is any skipper8217;s challenge, and Kumble topped it. He divided the lanky paceman8217;s spells into short bursts for his 20 overs, and got him to give his best each time.

Munaf, on being patted, occasionally touched the sensors of being genuinely quick, and regularly bowled a testing line without getting justifiable dividends.

Kumble never over-bowled Zaheer Khan either, not even in his first spell where the morning mist and his two early wickets to put Pakistan on the backfoot could have afforded an extra over to his eight.

Being the spine of the bowling department, he knew how exactly to rotate his bowlers, while bending his back too on a wicket that didn8217;t provide too much assistance to the spinners.

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He swapped ends in succession, and never allowed the batsmen to get used to one style of bowling.

In this process, Kumble probably never got to do what he always loves to8212;bowl long spells from one end, but8230;

He has never been a conventional bowler, and demonstrated it in his field placing. He wasn8217;t in the typical Test-style field of four slips and a gully to assert the moral superiority against the opponents. Instead, he kept silly mid-offs to short cover8212;something more often seen in one-dayers to keep in sync with the demands on the pitch.

He took the new ball at the right instance, in the second over after it became available, and almost ended Misbah-ul-Haq and Mohammad Sami8217;s association.

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Kumble has always been a man to talk straight, and his expressions would suggest anything little he tried to hide.

A few frustrated minutes reflected during a dropped chance and few half-chances in the last stage, but when Kumble walked out at end of day8217;s play, he was smiling. And that8217;s the story of the day.