Former Indian captain and legendary leg-spinner Anil Kumble has recently revealed why the Australian cricketers, who are always famous for aggressive on-field sledging, didn’t sledge him.
Anil Kumble was one of the greatest leg-spinners, not only in India but also in world cricket. He served for the Indian national cricket team from 1990 to 2008. The leg-spinner played 132 Tests and 271 ODIs where he took 619 and 337 wickets respectively. In both these formats, Kumble is still the leading wicket-taker for India. While he finished his international career with 956 wickets, he is the third most wicket-takers in international cricket history.
In his long international career, Anil Kumble defeated many top batsmen for many times. Recently, he claimed that he most loved to bowl against Australia who were the rulers during that period of international cricket.
Kumble quoted according to myKhel, “I think as a bowler you’d want to bowl against everyone. It’s a challenge (bowling against each team). But bowling against Australia (I loved the most), because at that time they were the best side international cricket. You would want to showcase what you can do and what you can achieve against the best in the business and that something I took up as a challenge and that’s wonderful to have many battles against the Aussies.”
Anil Kumble played 49 international matches against Australia where he bagged 142 wickets and it is still the most international wickets by a spinner against Australia.
In Test career, he took 111 wickets in 20 matches which is still a Test record by a spinner against Australia.
Anil Kumble was a friend of Shane Warne
During that talk, Anil Kumble also revealed that he heard Australian cricketers didn’t sledge the friends of the legendary leg-spinner Shane Warne. As he was a friend of Warne, the Australian cricketers didn’t sledge the Indian leg-spinner.
He said, “No, I don’t remember much. What I’ve heard is ‘if you are a friend of Shane Warne, you never get sledged’. I was a friend of Shane Warne, so I didn’t get sledged.”
Shane Warne, who retired from international cricket in 2007, is the second most wicket-taker in international cricket history (1001 wickets).