Former India spinner Anil Kumble has revealed that he never understood why he was compared with Australian legend Shane Warne and highest international wicket-taker Muttiah Muralitharan during their playing days.
Speaking to former Zimbabwe pacer Pommy Mbangwa on an Instagram live session, Kumble also reflected on what it feels to be remembered as the third highest wicket-taker in Test cricket.
“It feels really wonderful to finish with these many wickets. I never bothered about statistics or what my average should be, I wanted to bowl the whole day and be the one to take wickets. To finish as the third-highest wicket-taker in Tests alongside Murali and Warne is very special. All three of us played in the same era, there were a lot of comparisons, I do not know why people compared me with Warne. Warne was someone really different and he was on a different plane,” Kumble told Mbangwa during the interaction.
“These two guys could spin the ball on any surface so it became really difficult for me when they started comparing me with Warne and Murali. I learnt a lot by watching them both bowl,” he added.
Kumble is also India’s highest-ever wicket-taker in both Test and One Day International (ODI) cricket. The leg-spinner, who retired from international cricket in 2008, has 619 Test and 337 ODI wickets under his name.
In terms of Test wicket, he is just behind Warne (708) and Muralitharan (800) in the international list of highest wicket-taker.
Also, Kumble is just the second international bowler in the history of Test cricket to have achieved the feat of taking all 10 wickets in an innings. He joined Jim Laker when he returned with the figure of 10/74 in the second innings of a Test match against Pakistan at the Feroz Shah Kotla in 1999.