Not a spinner

Of course, England follows soon after the Oz return , but when you have already gathered sufficient scalps to be in the record books as the highest wicket-taker for India in both forms of the game, winning several games both at home and abroad, besides that magical 10 at Delhi, you wonder if you are pushing the envelope a bit too far.

Injuries do not help, and for a bowler a shoulder in question is akin to a choking throat of a singer, or a politician without a ready-made answer. It just does not work that way. And so before you could say Feroze Shah Kotla, Jumbo had announced his retirement.

Enough has already been written about his achievements, and his career stats are mind-boggling. India's traditional old spinners club treated him in his early days with disdainful cynicism. His slightly unconventional non-spinning fast leg spinners were considered a misnomer, a freakish success. Some thought he would fade away, others were convinced he was just a desi-boy, making hay while the dust shines on crumbling home-made tracks.

Kumble has had the last laugh, even though he is far too unassuming a guy to ever do so as if to prove a point. Just check his record in overseas, especially the last Aussie trip (since that is likely to be at least a lot fresher relatively) and you will know what I mean. The 10 on 10 in Kotla is the kind of stuff that happens once in a lifetime, like Brian Lara scoring a 400. Kumble is legendary in several ways.

I heard Sachin Tendulkar talk with awe and admiration about the way Jumbo wore a bandage on a broken jaw and came on to bowl in the West Indies, and that is one among many times that Kumble's team commitment and fiery spirit was called upon. Just when some thought that his batting woes was reaching disconcerting levels, he scored as well. The century at the Oval against England was extraordinary for the man who once made headlines with Sachin for scoring hundreds as a teenager.

When his young colleague Harbhajan Singh was involved in a squalid skirmish with Andrew Symonds which escalated into a cross-border diplomatic war, it took all of Kumble's cool head, maturity, wisdom and tact to handle the officials, players, media and the public with rare equanimity. He wanted solutions to problems, not just an extension of wrath and disharmony which could have led us nowhere. A sign of a leader.

One aspect of his modest low-profile, self-contented character went away expectedly unnoticed. As he returned from the controversial Aussie trip earlier this year, that famous Perth and moral victory in his bag, he disappeared as quietly as he could into the car park at Bangalore airport.

No post-postmortem interviews, no dramatic one-liners, not an unnecessary blowing of his leadership trumpet. For him it meant nothing. He gave no spin to anything really, it was always straight talk. He was really in that sense not a spin-master.

I think he was hurt by the way some of the media went around rubbishing seniors day in and day out. He was coming to terms with the new age sensationalism and sound byte world, where a new hero is born one day only to be replaced by another the day after.

The nasty suggestions that floated around the moment the wicket-taking had dried up momentarily perhaps also told him that this was a strangely uncaring, unforgiving world of T20 multiplex entertainment, where people want relentless drama, item numbers and success as they munch their popcorns and sip their cappuccinos.

For them, returning back with 11 stitches and still taking wickets was no big deal. Times have changed for sure. When he asked for respect from the journalists the other day, I felt his hurt, his disappointment, his dejection. I sensed then that like Sourav Ganguly, he had had enough of this mindless public scrutiny.

I saw him near the dressing room at Nagpur in a shirt and trouser having a brief chat with Rahul Dravid. It seemed an unusual sight, when you think that he was in whites and a captain just over a week ago. Then the camera moved on to Amit Mishra and I knew that an era, an age had suddenly gone past us, so imperceptibly.

But for a moment, his bespectacled, curly-haired, thick as brush moustache face just flashed by. That familiar run-up, the long arms getting ready to tweak the ball, turning it to deceive and destroy that man with the bat in front. Ball after all. Over after over. He was ready for a battle. Always. And whenever he bowled, you just believed that almost on any ball he could work a magic, a marvel, pull India out of the woods, getting us the wicket we needed. You just believed in him so much.

Fly high, Jumbo, because you proved that if one has the will, even the skies are not a limit!