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What does it take to make it as a wristspinner in Test cricket? In this detailed chat about the craft, India’s record-breaking legspinner Anil Kumble talks about what coaches need to teach young spinners, the toll that legspin can exert on the body, his hopes for Kuldeep Yadav, and… why he found Sachin Tendulkar so aggravating.

Legspin in Test cricket is something I grew up watching. And I’m sure, generations before that did – including yours. But we don’t see it much these days.
Yeah, I know. It’s disappointing not to see that. Probably Yasir Shah was the last of the [Test] legspinners, so to speak, consistently playing for Pakistan. But post that, Kuldeep [Yadav] is the other spinner who I love to watch.

It’s not just about the skill. It’s also about setting batters up and then sort of bamboozling them with something that they read wrongly. And all those intricacies, the drama that you want to see in Test cricket, certainly legspinners bring that.

Less than 4% of all balls bowled in Test cricket in 2024 were by wristspinners. That used to be much higher in the mid-2000s, and even more before. Do we have reason to ask why none of the Test-playing nations seem to be aspiring to produce the next Shane Warne, the next Anil Kumble, who still rank among the five leading wicket-takers in Tests. Is that not an ambition anymore?
I don’t know. Even in first-class cricket you tend to not see too many legspinners coming in. White-ball cricket has certainly seen wristspin – probably because of the captains wanting a bowler beating both edges, irrespective of who the batter is, right-hander or left-hander. But I’d like to see someone really come through the ranks. Now that [R] Ashwin is not there for India and [Ravindra] Jadeja is towards the back end of his career, hopefully Kuldeep will get a longer rope and then somebody else may come through.

The number of wristspinners in white-ball cricket has gone up because of the huge appetite for them among T20 franchises. The India white-ball side in 2019 under Virat Kohli took a step away from fingerspin to attack with Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav. But the job description is different there. Is that resulting in a loss of red-ball wristspinners?
Yeah, possibly. And also, you need captains to have a little bit of patience. Especially in first-class cricket or in red-ball cricket. You need for these spinners to develop over time. You can’t get results straightaway. There will be the odd short ball, the odd full toss. And if a captain now is looking to sort of restrict [scoring] and look at bowlers who can bat, there are too many things that you need to tick for you to be a part of a playing XI in red-ball cricket. It’s not just about your wicket-taking ability. So it becomes a bit more challenging now, I guess.

Why did you choose to be a legspinner and who did you look up to?
I certainly looked up to someone like BS Chandrasekhar [though] obviously I had not seen much of his bowling. I chose legspin because there were not too many legspinners around in my age group. My brother just said, why don’t you bowl legspin? Fast bowling was something [where] the seniors in my club said I chucked – you know, my elbow bends.

“[Earlier] spin was something that every team had irrespective of where they played, and that was a weapon. Whereas now, some of the teams are using it more as a defensive option”

Did they say that or was it actually the other kids who said it?
No, I don’t know. As a young player, you don’t know exactly – you don’t have the strength to bowl 22 yards. So maybe the elbow was coming into play when I was bowling fast.

I didn’t know the grip of legspin, nothing, no formal coaching. So I just held the ball like an offspinner and then bowled. I knew that I had to rotate the wrist the other way around. And that was my grip. So it was an offspinner’s grip [but] bowling legspin.

So the first wristspin delivery you bowled in any kind of reasonably competitive game was at what age?
At 14, yes, in the nets. And then immediately, within a couple of months, I represented Karnataka in the Under-15 age group. And since then, I never looked back.

Was it because you were moving to legspin that you perhaps developed a greater interest in how Chandrasekhar bowled?
Yes. And the other fact was also that in Karnataka, there was an U-15 inter-school tournament where I was chosen as one of the allrounders. And there were a group of 30 kids, under 15, for a one-month summer camp. And I was fortunate that it was BS Chandrasekhar who was the coach. That probably was my initiation into representative cricket.

He was still bowling at that time. This was prior to his unfortunate [motor] accident [in 1994]. So he would bowl in the nets. As a young kid, you would just be mesmerised by him running in and bowling. He said to me: you should lengthen your run-up, because that will give you the momentum and better control and accuracy, and [it will] probably suit you. And that run-up sort of stuck with me for the rest of my career.

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02:40

‘I chose legspin because there weren’t too many legspinners around’

I’m guessing it also appealed to you because you had an innate desire to bowl like a quick bowler. So it didn’t take a lot for you to become the kind of legspinner we still consider as being not orthodox – like Chandra was as well.
Yes, he was very different. He couldn’t really… he had polio-affected arms. So he had to sort of wind himself up to bowl. And that’s one of the reasons why he was that quick. And I was similar. So I used to bowl it quick. And for me, being tall, I could never look to flight the ball because I felt that was not me.

When you grew up watching cricket, you had Chandra and Abdul Qadir bowling. Richie Benaud was a well-known presence in the world even if you probably never watched him bowl live. You had inspirations and success stories. Who are the role models for a 13-14-year-old bowling now? Yasir Shah was a while ago. Australia haven’t found a successor to Warne. And now the heroes will be white-ball wristspinners.
I guess the game has changed now. I mean, if you look at inspirations, generally [these days] you sort of look towards batters and big hitters.

White-ball cricket has meant that you have to be slightly different. Offspinners are bowling carrom balls and trying to come up with different deliveries.

The mystery of spin needs to be there. That is something that I think all kids tend to sort of grow up [knowing]. As a coach, I’m sure, as a 14-year-old, if you’re bowling just offspin, the coach might say, why don’t you bowl a carrom ball? Because that’s the kind of requirement now in white-ball cricket. I’m a bit surprised that people don’t consider [taking up] legspin, because automatically there’s a bit of mystery there – you have the opportunity to go different ways.

So I certainly feel that, like I mentioned, you need some sort of patience if you’re a captain or a team to have a legspinner develop into a consistent bowler.

“It was all about angles, pace, trajectory for me, and not necessarily legspin, googly, flipper”

How hard is it to bowl legspin?
It’s not easy to bowl six deliveries in one place because of the action itself and the [way the] wrist [needs to be]. So it takes time. For some people it comes naturally. For me it was not natural. I had to sort of develop.

Since I was a fast bowler before, I could get the accuracy. So that [part] came naturally to me. I guess for a youngster, if someone’s sort of naturally doing that, then I think you need to continue to encourage that girl or boy to sort of try and do that.

Do you fear that there aren’t incentives to develop this skill? Test cricket was looking for wristspinners through the ’90s because it was felt that if you didn’t have a wristspinner, you’d never be able to make an inroad on flat pitches – your fast bowlers wouldn’t be enough. Now in Test cricket everyone’s happy with a fingerspinner who can bat. No one’s even looking for a wristspinner anymore.
It is a concern because you look at world cricket. When I was playing, the great Shane Warne was there. You had Mushtaq Ahmed for Pakistan. Then I was playing here. [Muthiah] Muralidaran was a spinner [in Sri Lanka]. Daniel Vettori… So you had some wonderful spinners playing in every team.

Now, spin other than India, and perhaps Australia, to a large extent has become sort of only used when you’re coming to the subcontinent. [Earlier] spin was something that every team had irrespective of where they played, and that was a weapon. It was not just a defensive option. Whereas now, some of the teams are using it more as a defensive option.

Even the Indian mindset has changed. You’re looking at faster bowlers now trying to win you Test matches, rather than looking at spinners. Someone like an Ashwin [hardly ever] played outside of India. I felt that he should have played a lot more than he eventually played outside of India.

“We need to celebrate someone like Kuldeep Yadav,” Kumble says. “I would like to see him playing Test match cricket more often”

© ICC/Getty Images

When you grew up, how hard did you have to work to become an accurate wristspinner? Take me through your journey.
My journey was just continuing to bowl. You just didn’t stop bowling. And that’s how you develop accuracy. That’s how you learn your trade. It’s repetitive, it’s a mind thing. The body needs to be in the right position for you to bowl the ball. And when you know that everything is aligned, the more you do it, the better you get.

The toll it took on your body to bowl all day versus the toll it took on a fingerspinner’s body – could you try and articulate what the difference was?
I was slightly quicker. So I had to have that kind of run-up and the action and the follow-through for me to be effective. Because I didn’t really turn the ball that much.

For an offspinner, for example, or a left-hand spinner, the control was always there because turning it this way rather than this way [demonstrates with wrist facing inwards and then outwards] is probably a lot easier when it comes to control. So for me, I had to bowl a lot more in the nets. You start the net, and till the end of the net, you’re bowling, irrespective of who’s batting. And that’s how you develop your art. That’s how you learn about how you can subtly vary pace, angles. It was all about angles, pace, trajectory for me, and not necessarily legspin, googly, flipper. At least when I was first trying to develop.

So would you say it took a greater toll on the body than for an offspinner who also bowled that long?
Oh yeah. My shoulder was gone. Through my career in the ’90s, strength training wasn’t really [a] thing. Only after I got injured did I realise the importance of strength training. It was mostly about cardiovascular training [back then]. You kept running, you ran up and down the steps, and you did all the running training, cardio training. I never went to a gym for about ten years, until I was 30. At the end of it, there were stages where I sat down at the end of the day after a Test match and I couldn’t even lift my hand. It would be so sore. And you had to put ice on it and then take a few painkillers and ensure that you were ready for the next day.

And the kind of physios that you have now, the kind of support systems that you have now, I wish we had those kinds of support systems. But you just went through pain, you just pushed yourself. Look, no matter what, you just had to go and bowl.

“[When I was coaching in the IPL] a few bowlers would just run in and bowl three or four overs in the nets and say, “I’m happy now.” I’d say, I know you need to bowl four overs in the match, but at nets, you would like to bowl more because that’s how you get better control of your skill”

Did you sleep poorly as well?
Yeah, I mean I had pain in my shoulder. Probably because I had some problem there. Probably because there was an impingement or whatever, at that point in time. So I just took a few injections. If you went to a social gathering at the end of the evening and someone came and tried to shake my hand, it was like that [lifts right arm with left hand under elbow for support]. So it was that bad. And you ended up trying to push through that pain and you just went about doing it. You were stiff and you had to stretch it out and then do some exercises to be ready for the next day.

But having said that, I think once I started building up strength, it became that much easier. In fact, I was much stronger after my surgery [on his shoulder, in 2001]. And I was probably stronger and fitter after 30 rather than between 20 to 30.

Is the legspinner’s action as unnatural a thing as perhaps a slingy-action fast bowler’s, where we think, oh my god, what’s this doing to his body? Even for a conventional leggie – we were talking the other day about Suyash Sharma, whose head tilts away acutely when he delivers. Where would you put bowling wristspin in terms of the most unnatural things the human body has to do in cricket?
Bowling itself is unnatural. If I give you a ball and say you need to get it to that person ten metres away, you’re not going to bowl. You’re going to throw it. So that’s natural. Whereas bowling is unnatural. So the shoulder gets sort of clogged and that’s the impingement that you have every time you bowl. Invariably it puts pressure on your back, your lower back, and the effort that you put in when you land – it may not equate to a fast bowler running in and bowling at 150 [kph], but it certainly puts pressure on your back, and that was something that I always felt. I was fortunate that I didn’t have too many injuries in my career. Shoulder was one. Back troubled me on and off. Right towards the end of my career, my foot started to trouble me. Otherwise I was generally fine to go and bowl.

All of us who grew up watching cricket around the ’90s and 2000s, when we watched Warne, we thought, wow, this is easy.
That was poetry. He was someone who was exceptional – exceptionally talented, gifted, and he could make the ball talk. He had control. We had conversations about how he thought. How did he set batters up? He would ask me and I would share my views on a few batters and what I would do. So those conversations [happened] whenever we played against each other.

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03:05

‘At the end of the day, I couldn’t even lift my hand’

It was wonderful to sit back and watch him bowl, or Murali bowl. And I knew that, okay, this is what he is trying to do, because at the end of it, it’s still a mind game. Yes, you may have different skills, but you need to know when to do what. And that’s the best part about bowling. When to use which variation? And how do you ensure that you’re setting him up for what you’re looking for, which is a wicket?

When Warne bowled, we thought he was born to bowl legspin, and that there was no way it could be something that was unnatural or hard for him. But would you say, whether from your conversations with him or speaking generally, that it took as much of a toll on his body as, say, it did on your own?
Of course. He was strong. His upper body was much stronger, he was really strong in his shoulders. But the effort you could see, you could see that he was giving it a proper rip. So the wrist, the shoulder – when you’re doing that, all of those muscles come in. And yes, he also had a shoulder issue. I’m sure he had a back issue as well. So he had to go through those grinds.

Is it actually physically more demanding than even fast bowling, given you have to generate pace and accuracy from a shorter run-up? I’m sure a few fast bowlers may want to contest this.
I would say probably equal because you’re bowling that much longer. Because invariably, if a fast bowler bowled 20 overs in a Test match, I would end up bowling 40 or 50. So which meant that literally I was doubling up on the number of overs.

And are your margins smaller? Where the bad ball of the leggie is actually easier to hit than the bad ball of the quick?
Of course. It is. Margins are lesser. And the batter doesn’t have the fear of getting hit. As a fast bowler, you at least have that option – of injuring the batter.

One of my colleagues, Karthik Krishnaswamy, did a detailed analysis piece about how few wristspinners we have in Test cricket now. Cricket often goes without wristspinners for a while because they are so hard to produce. And I’m guessing because of the toll it takes on the body, and the mindset needed, we don’t get them. I’m wondering if we were blessed in watching a generation of yourself and Warnie and Mushtaq Ahmed all bowl together, and we may not see legspinners for a long time.
Yeah, especially in red-ball cricket. I think it’s unlikely. And that’s why I think we need to celebrate someone like Kuldeep Yadav. I would like to see him playing Test match cricket more often, because on any surface, the batsman is still unsure [against legspin]. He doesn’t know which way the ball is going to go. That’s something that you want to see and encourage. And I thought that there would be a few more legspinners who would line up to bowl in red-ball cricket. Someone like Chahal, I thought, would make it to the Test match cricket arena. I know it was difficult for Chahal to get in because of Ashwin and Jadeja and Kuldeep. But I would have wanted to see him compete. I think he just gave up competing [for a spot in] red-ball cricket. Although he was really exceptional in white-ball cricket.

“For you [as a wristspinner] to be [in consideration] when you get a flat deck is for you to be successful. Unless you pick those five-wicket hauls, you’re not going to get opportunities in red-ball cricket”

Warnie’s success was so much about the ability to get the ball to drift. That’s not necessarily something you are asked to work on in white-ball cricket, where it’s more about bowling wide or bowling away from a batter’s arc. Do you think the education and training for white-ball cricket takes away from a legspinner’s chances of playing Test cricket?
It does, because you still have to play those long formats to be successful. To get the kind of drift that Warnie or somebody like that was getting, you need to give it a proper rip.

And you need to bowl long spells to understand your own bowling. Because [in T20] you’re just bowling four overs. You know, the last time that I was coach in franchise cricket, for Punjab [Kings], there were a few bowlers who would just run in and bowl three overs or four overs in the nets and say, “I’m happy now.” I’d say, come on, I know you need to bowl four overs in the match, but at nets, you would like to bowl more because that’s how you get better control of your skill, of what you’re trying to achieve. I would end up bowling about one and a half hours in the nets, you know, at 50 years.

You were bowling that much as coach?
Yeah, as coach. I mean, it was Covid conditions, so you needed the extra bowler to run in and bowl! But I think what is important is for the mindset. You know, the mindset has shifted now to saying, “I know I need to bowl four overs in a T20. I’m happy with bowling just that half hour in the nets because that’s all it takes for me to bowl different deliveries. And I’ll be ready for the match.”

You’re a big wildlife man, I know. So you understand about the preservation of species. So let’s say I put you in charge of the preservation of legspinners. How do we preserve them? How do we increase their numbers? Because I’d like to think India should at least aspire to have red-ball wristspinners in future.
It needs to be forced, I guess, in some way. Because if you look back at the way faster bowlers came through the ranks [in India], the pitches were prepared like that. There were green tops and there was a concentrated effort on building fast bowling. So maybe that’s something that one needs to do. Saying okay, every team – well, not necessarily every team, maybe at least one in two teams, needs to have a wristspinner.

And you need to prepare the pitches. At the end of it, if the pitches are flat and you’re just running in and getting smashed every game that you play, for one, the captain’s not going to play you [more]. Two, the confidence level will go away. You need to give [legspinners] those kinds of opportunities and also create an environment where you’re giving them enough to succeed. Because until you succeed, you’re not going to get that confidence. So as a young spinner, you need to be picking wickets, winning matches, for you to continue to be passionate about doing that day in, day out.

Goodbye to all that: Kumble with his wife at the end of his last Test, against Australia in 2008

Vipin Kumar / © Hindustan Times/Getty Images

If you’re not doing that, if you’re getting smashed every ball and you’re [bowling on] flat decks, that’s not going to work. Or if you’re going to give green tops and say, you know what, you’re not needed, we’ll only look at you in case [we know the pitch will turn]. That’s not going to work.

Will a flat deck help, though, for a red-ball legspinner? That’s where you might think he’ll have an edge over a fingerspinner.
Oh yes. But for you to even be [in consideration] when you get a flat deck is for you to be successful. Unless you pick those five-wicket hauls, you’re not going to get opportunities in red-ball cricket. So you need to create that environment. When you’re developing spin, you know – let’s leave wristspin for a moment and say we want to develop spinners in India – you need to provide surfaces where spinners can be successful. You need to give them a little bit of help. Otherwise they’re not going to be successful – it’s going to be very difficult to get a consistent performance from a spinner, a standout spinner. But it’s not easy because the shift is more towards white-ball cricket.

In red-ball cricket, India produced far more spin-friendly surfaces – to the point where enough of them could be called rank turners. In many ways, that brought in the spin-bowling allrounders – which Ashwin, Jadeja and even Axar Patel were at home. But it also took away the need for a wristspinner like yourself, who would be a threat on days one and two, and almost unplayable later, on the traditional wickets. I know batters complain about rank turners in India, but aren’t wristspinners also right to be aggrieved about these kind of surfaces?
Yes, they are. Like I said, at the domestic level you need to first start training them so that they are successful. And only then – I mean, the pitches that get prepared for domestic cricket and for Test cricket are probably chalk and cheese.

How are you going to build that kind of a pipeline if you want to be successful at Test level with a wristspinner coming on board? And then once you [as a spinner] get that kind of success [in domestic cricket], it’s easier for you to go abroad and [bowl]. I feel someone like a Kuldeep should be playing more often than not for India in Test match cricket, because he can win you matches. Like you said, on day one, get you a couple of wickets. And the best part about wristspin, I feel, is they can run through sides. It’s not just about getting that one. It’s also about two, three, four, five. Just literally pushing the game beyond the opposition.

“How do you bowl your first over? How do you bowl a spell? I think those are things that need to be taught. You need to construct your spell in a manner where the pressure is always on the batter. Because ultimately it’s the pressure that gets a batter out”

Is there a wristspinner you see today who makes you go, wow?
I’ve seen a few in this IPL, you know, although I’ve not seen them in red-ball cricket. I think Vipraj [Nigam] certainly is someone who has it in him. He bowls that much quicker, he has all the variations. He’s only 21, and I feel he’s someone who you can develop into a red-ball bowler.

Zeeshan [Ansari] probably is more classical. You can develop him into a red-ball bowler. But I feel between the two, maybe a Vipraj will… I see that he has potential. Certainly to play white-ball formats, for sure – T20. Because he can bat. He’s a good fielder. He bowls in different, sort of, sections of the game. He has the natural repetitive action that you need for the longer format.

Did you ever think, when it was taking a toll on your body in the early years: What am I doing bowling legspin? Might as well just try a bit of fingerspin. It’d be so much easier. Less toll on the shoulder and whatnot.
No, I knew that this was the only way that I could be successful. And for me, I was not an orthodox spinner. So obviously, you know, I had to be different. I had to be in the face of the batter every ball. And I had to put in that kind of body behind every ball. Because I didn’t have the skill of a Shane Warne, who would probably beat the batter from the hand. I didn’t have that. I had to sort of literally beat batters with pace – that was my strength. Batters expected it to come slower, but I was slightly quicker. And that would beat them either bowled or lbw or caught at short leg or silly point with bounce and pace, rather than turn and guile. So for me it was more to push myself doing that day in, day out.

Pace is something we regularly mention in relation to Kuldeep, about his ability to adapt pace for formats. At one point he was too slow for T20 cricket, and then he was firing it in, which didn’t help him in the longer formats. Now wristspinners are all starting off bowling quick through the air because that is something that the white-ball game demands. But you also have to be able to slow it down when needed in ODIs or in Test cricket. What sort of challenge do you think that is?
So if you’re someone who bowls slightly quicker, like me, the challenge was to slow things down. And same for someone who’s slow in the air, for that person to bowl quicker. See, I think people get confused when you say Kuldeep should bowl quicker. It’s not about the pace in the air. Yes, that is there, but it’s off the pitch. Off the pitch, it needs to zip through. So that’s something that you need. That’s the only way that you can beat a batter.

Watch this space: Kumble picks Vipraj Nigam of Delhi Capitals as a spinner who has impressed him in recent times

Deepak Malik / © AFP/Getty Images

And you’re basically generating that with your shoulder.
With your shoulder, with your action, with your body. All of that needs to sort of go one [after] the other, so that you get that kind of pace off the surface. And that is what you see in a bowler. When you’re looking at talent – X versus Y, why is this guy better? Although he may not have the variations of the other guy, he’s probably more consistent with the pace at which it comes off the surface. So that’s why I felt someone like a Vipraj has that – whatever I’ve seen, it’s only four overs that you see, but off the surface, he has that zip.

What does the mindset of a wristspinner have to be if he wants to play long-form cricket, where you’re saying, I’m going to find a way to get the batter out defending. When Rashid Khan plays Test cricket today, great white-ball bowler that he is, it’s a huge challenge for him to get batters out on the defence. How much of that is mindset?
It’s mindset and control. And I think it’s also about having that ability to vary length and pace with consistency. And that will only come if you practise day in, day out. And then, of course, the [knowledge] to bowl which ball when, and what length when, what line when. I think those are something that you learn as you play more and more.

Is this something that can be taught? Or are we just going to wait till the next naturally born leggie comes out? The next guy who thinks like Anil Kumble or aspires to be a legspinner or who’s born with the gifts of Shane Warne? Must cricket simply wait?
No, what I feel is, coaches tend to sort of teach young cricketers how to bowl legspin. You know that you don’t need that. I mean, basically you sort of know what the grip is. And you know that if you do this, it’s legbreak, if you do this, it’s a googly. You do that, that’s a flipper. Yeah, those are things that you can teach. But I think what is more critical is, which I don’t think gets taught enough or at least shared enough, is the ability to take wickets. Like for a batter, yes, defence, cover drive, technique, all that is [important]. But how do you score runs? How do you plan your fifties? How do you plan your hundreds?

How do you bowl your first over? How do you bowl a spell? I think those are things that need to be taught. And that can only come with experience, and that needs to be shared. Because that is the [basis] of how successful you can be. Because it’s not just about bowling the beautiful ball in the first over and then after that, you bowl rubbish. Then it doesn’t work. You need to construct your spell in a manner where the pressure is always on the batter. Because ultimately it’s the pressure that gets a batter out, not necessarily the skill sets that you have. Yes, the skill sets, the kind of bowling you have, will build pressure. So that’s what you need to do. As long as you can hold that pressure for a long time, you have a better chance of getting a batter out.

“If you want to become a match-winner, you need that X factor, whether you’re a batter or a fast bowler or a spinner. That X factor comes naturally to you by bowling wristspin, because there is an element of doubt as to which way the ball is going”

Watching Digvesh Rathi this year, it seemed like we may not get the legspinner, but we may get someone who actually bowls a pretty decent legbreak, as well as the carrom ball or the offie. Liam Livingstone might have opened the door for bowlers who can bowl legspin and offspin. Is it likely that we will find right-arm all-spin before right-arm legspin?
Yeah, you need that. I mean, we saw, I think… who was that – Kamindu Mendis?

Oh, that was ambidextrous. I think he’s just right-arm straight and left-arm straight.
I know. So that’s something that I’m sure you’ll see. You’ll see a lot of bowlers now wanting to take the ball away from both left-handers and right-handers, whether you do it with the carrom ball or the conventional way of a legbreak.

Don’t you need two actions for that? Rathi seems like an outlier, where he’s managing to bowl the two pretty much the same.
So even Varun Chakravarthy does that a little bit. I guess it’s a matter of camouflaging it. How little can the batter see the variation is what you’re trying to hide. If the batter knows that this is what is coming, it becomes that much easier. So you’re trying to sort of keep that [hidden] slightly longer, so the batter gets less time to react.

All you’re trying to do as a bowler is to create doubt in the batter’s mind. And you do that, the bowler needs to figure out.

Let’s say you’re making a pitch to young kids who are taking up cricket for the first time, and perhaps their parents as well, about why they should want to bowl legspin. Not just as a T20 bowler but as someone who could be among the top wicket-takers. Give them good reasons.
Because you can win matches. Yes, if you’re a batter who can destroy a bowling attack, you can certainly win matches. But as a bowler, if you have those tricks up your sleeve that are not easy for the batters to pick, you can win matches. So if you want to become a match-winner, you need that X factor, whether you’re a batter or a fast bowler or a spinner.

Shane Warne had outrageous talent, but he also paired that with hard work. “That was poetry. He was someone who was exceptional,” Kumble says of Warne, “exceptionally talented, gifted, and he could make the ball talk. He had control”

Aijaz Rahi / © Associated Press

That X factor comes naturally to you by bowling wristspin, because there is an element of doubt as to which way the ball is going. And [the key is to] develop that from a young age, and then start bowling a lot, to understand your own skills. Because it’s all about the mind.

As soon as the ball is released from your hand, you [should] know where exactly it’s going to land. So you need the subconscious mind to absorb all of that. For that to happen, it’s a repetitive process. You just need to go through it day in, day out, doing the same thing, trying to understand: if I do this, this is what happens, and if I do that, this is what happens. Once you understand that, the ability to use what when and how depends on situations and the surface and the batter that you’re facing.

You have spoken so much in the past about how much the game has given you, how much cricket has done for you. India had many great batters. Among bowlers, yes, there was a Chandra, but the volume of your achievements puts you in a unique category. Do you feel when you look back that you did the right thing bowling legspin? You could have been a quick, could have decided to bat, could have given it away…
I’ve really not thought about it in that fashion at all. I’ve always believed that this is what I can do. I’ve never considered myself a classical spinner. So I’ve always had these challenges of trying to prove myself first before trying to prove [things to] anyone else. Saying, look, I need to cross this line because I feel I’m not capable, because of the skills that I have. When you look at a Warnie or a Mushy, or a Murali for that matter – all of them could spin it big. But I didn’t do that.

I had to create my own style. So I felt that for me every day was a challenge, whether it was practice, whether it was a match. That mindset probably helped me get to where I eventually ended up. I think it’s all about what your mind wants you to do rather than wanting to have a different skill. Everyone has limitations and [it’s about] understanding those limitations early in your life and then working on how you can mask them, basically. Everyone has those. Unless you’re a [Sachin] Tendulkar. He had probably the greatest of all the gifts. And he was blessed. But he also worked hard at it. Let me say it: he worked really hard at his game.

But for someone like me, I had to sort of work on my strength day in, day out. But also try and figure out how I can mask those limitations.

“If you have that attitude of wanting to win at any cost, irrespective of what the conditions are, I think that helps you to deliver better, helps your game go one notch higher. It’s not about the skills, It’s about your mindset. It’s about the attitude on the field”

I’m just going to sidetrack for a little. Did it ever annoy you if you and Sachin bowled in the nets and Sachin suddenly just decided to bowl legbreaks?
Always. Always. I say this every time! I said it to Sachin as well. I said, thank god you didn’t take legspin seriously. Because otherwise, I wouldn’t have played. Because he was someone who could do everything. He would just wobble like that in nets and then turn it this big.

And he can bowl a googly as well, and then he would bowl a flipper. He would do everything. Suddenly bowl offspin, bowl outswing, inswing.

Why was it so easy for him to bowl?
I did sort of look at his grip and try to see if I could get that going. But I never got it. I said, no, I can’t do this. And yeah, he was gifted. And I was glad that he didn’t take up legspin – seriously!

Did he ever come to you and say, why do you put so much effort into it – the jump and long run?
No, he certainly knew that it required a lot more effort than just having… you had to bowl about 30-40 overs.

In India we worship our cricketers. Especially those from your generation, which felt like a golden generation. When you meet all the great batters you played with, you somewhere feel, yeah, batters might be the toast of the nation with their achievements and runs, and there’s only ever one Tendulkar and one Dravid… But do you sense your team-mates respect your achievements more because of your skill? Because I’ve heard this when I’ve worked with you in multiple studios – every one of your colleagues, they all just go: what this man did… You reached the pinnacle of perhaps the hardest thing in the game.
Yeah, I think being a bowler is not easy. It’s tough because you just have to go through the process and the grind of doing it repetitively, whether you like it or not, whether the conditions are in your favour or not. You just have to go there. Probably, you know, I certainly know that the respect is there. And it’s mutual. And I think I’ve earned that respect because of the attitude that I had on the field.

Yes, the results were different. But I think more importantly, if you have that attitude on the field of wanting to win at any cost, irrespective of what the conditions are, I think that helps you to deliver better, helps your game go one notch higher. It’s not about the skills. Skills I think everybody has. It’s about your mindset. It’s about the attitude on the field, which sort of determines whether you can succeed consistently or not.

How annoying is that: in addition to being the top Test and ODI run-scorer, Sachin Tendulkar could also bowl just about every variety of spin and slow-medium

© AFP

So I guess when you’re looking at young players, it’s also their hunger and attitude that you’re looking at, not necessarily just the skill.

Is the ten-for more pleasing or the Test hundred?
Ten-fer, I guess, because that’s something that you don’t really think of. I mean, it’s destiny. I believed that I could get a hundred every innings. But I never thought that I would get a ten-fer every time I bowled. Every time I batted, I felt that I could get a hundred.

I felt like there was more emotion when you got the Test hundred. The happiness was there.
Yeah, obviously. I came close to a few of those in my career – [where I made] 70 or 80 but didn’t eventually cross the line. I had a few first-class hundreds. But when this eventually happened, it was certainly something that… I certainly got emotional. More than me, I think the team-mates were happier than I was on that day.

Do you think we’ll see a legspinner come close to 619 or 708 Test wickets?
I don’t know about Test cricket. I’m not really sure. The numbers are not there anymore. I mean, the focus is more towards white ball cricket. But someone like a Kuldeep, I think, will bowl and get wickets in Test match cricket and in white-ball cricket, because he’s someone who has that skill and he’s wonderful to watch.

Yeah, I mean, 600 is just a number. I’m sure if you continue to play and play longer, then those numbers can be achieved. It’s just that I would like to see wristspinners. And I’m happy that at least in white-ball cricket, you’re seeing them in most teams now – at least one bowler. I’d like to see that often in red-ball cricket too.

Raunak Kapoor is deputy editor (video) and lead presenter for ESPNcricinfo. @RaunakRK

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