Titan cup semi final 1996

As retrospectives go, this is not much - a group match, which is a defacto semi-final because of an earlier match being washed out. We are going to talk about the The Titan Cup 1996 semi-final featuring Karnataka Bowlers v. South Africa. 

Well Tendulkar did hit an 88 in the match, and Mark Taylor hit a century, but I had to check the scorecards to remember that. The only thing that popped up was Javagal Srinath and Anil Kumble letting loose a frenzied lower order slog which was more reminiscent of Pakistan than the Indian team of those times. 

Later on we found out that the tournament was suspect – maybe Cronje had it fixed, along with Azhar (and Jadeja probably). But unlike match fixing in other matches, these revelations came out much later – almost 6-8 years had passed, and for a lot of people, the connections were never made. 

The Soldier

It has been months since I wrote on cricket. The interest to watch had never waned, but the desire to write certainly had. I watched with frustration as the Indian batting struggled in SriLanka . The feeling changed to irritation as the latest battle between the Fourth Estate and the Indian veterans reached ludicrous levels. Yet, none of these emotions were so strong as to be represented in words. Ganguly's retirement plans almost forced me to tap the keyboard again. But, there was still a mental block to be overcome. The block was finally overcome by the retirement of India's finest test match winner - Anil Kumble.

It was inevitable that Anil Kumble would retire sometime during the 2008-2009 season. Age was catching up and the shoulder was complaining and the veteran had to bow, as all must, to Father Time. But, as Kumble was given a farewell which rivalled Steve Waugh's, it was tempting to look back on the many triumphs and the few failures which made him such a special cricketer. But, the cliche still holds, facts and figures can never do proper justice to a sportsman.

To me Kumble's greatest achievement is that in all the tests India won during the time he was in the team, he was India's foremost player - not Tendulkar or Dravid. He relentlessly rolled on, bowling over after over and ensuring that the batsmen didn't ever complain that the bowlers hadn't done their job. He was India's finest bowler, her greatest test player.

Congrats Anil for being such a great player and for rekindling a dying flame in me -writing.