You are bang on target when you said that everybody except Kumble thought that his career was over. You forgot to mention the day Kumble came on to bowl with an injured/fractured jaw( and almost picked up a handful of wickets). That act alone speaks volumes about this man.
The problem (not exactly) with Indian cricket is that it is being raided with hoardes of talent and this is pushing the much deserved accolades from people like Kumble and Dravid. in my opinion, these two along with Sachin represent some of the most matured minds of the growing face of Indian cricket. Also to be kept in mind is that these people are in the peak of their careers right now. It is imperative that they interact with a lot of the domestic cricketers and impart the gained experience to the young blokes. Indian cricket should not suffer from the problems that the WestIndies Cricket team is going through. When these cricketers retire, we MUST have a good bench to replace this terrific bunch of talented cricketers.
Phase one of this is already going good with Srinath not being missed (with the good raw pace attack that we have right now)
Srinath has told in beautiful words how Kumble has been a great bowler and a gentleman par excellence. He is disciplined both in his actions as well as bowling. Coming to bowling after being hit on the head in West Indies, Kumble showed his courage. He has been treated badly by the selection committee on various occassions- even dropped in favour of rookie Sairaj Bahatule but Kumble has taken it in his stride and on each occassion came back with a vengeance. Hope the selection committee continue to treat him badly to bring the best of him.
I am shocked to have read 2 days back Srinath's defence of the declaration, thus successfully doing to Sachin what Inzy and his guys could not! Some years back, when playing Pakistan, and Kumble had 8/9 wickets, the papers reported that Venkatesh Prasad walked up to Srinath and told him not to take any wicket - thus enabling Kumble to take 10 wickets. And, very rightly, Srinath responded . The rest is History. Why did Srinath not say, "the team is more important", and proceed to capture the wicket of the last 1/2 batsmen? Has Srinath forgotten this incident? Or, was it that , after hanging up his boots, he now realises that "the team is more important"? Would Srinath please explain? Suresh D. Koondaje
srinath couldn't have been more accurate in describing kumble's personality. there have been times when i as a cricket fan have questioned kumble's place in the team, but as he has done always, silenced me with his performance. it shows the amount of pressure cricketers have to work under nowadays as nobody remembers feat achieved 3 months ago if u have a bad match. hats off to kumble.
