Was it Really Out of the Blue?
My day started normally. I woke up after a hectic weekend, not wanting to go to work. Yes for us poor souls in the Middle East, Sunday is a working day.
I got to work on time, called in for some garam chai, and logged on to my laptop.
As I sipped through the tea I watched the laptop take its sweet time logging on and then Windows taking its even sweeter time trying to start some programs and block some start-up programs.
Even the tea wasn't that sweet!
As all the icons came into place and the network told me it was up, I clicked onto the explorer and got on to Cricinfo for some live ball-by-ball of the final day at the Kotla.
A draw was the only result in my mind but I wanted another Gambhir 100 and some Johnson wickets for cheap fantasy points.
Niether happened and the day went on as I juggled between work, gmail, cricinfo, facebook, and the blogs.
Somewhere during the day I lost interest in the match and got engrossed in some animated gmail exchanges on several mailing lists.
That is when an email from Gaurav Sethi popped up. The subject was "who retired first" and in the mail was a link saying Anil or Saurav?.
I wondered what imaginary post NC had written this time when suddenly it occurred to me - Had Kumble announced his retirement?
NO! How could that be I thought. I looked at the watch and thought that the match had not ended surely and it was only days ago that Kumble was blasting the media on speculating about his retirement.
With all these thoughts in my mind I shifted to my Cricinfo window, which was now showing "network server error". I clicked on refresh and as the browser opened I read comments on the ball-by-ball from readers paying their tributes to Kumble who had announced his retirement during the tea interval.
I had said on numerous occasions that this would be Kumble's last test series but I never expected the announcement to come like this. Actually I didn't expect it at all with the way Kumble answered the media throughout the last month.
Then I read NC's post and I left a comment saying the same.
Who would have thought Kumble would be the first one to go out of the 5 seniors?
As the day went on, tributes kept coming in. I read them all.
I followed the ball-by-ball seeing Kumble take the new ball hoping he gets a wicket in his final spell. That would also give me some fantasy points.
Then it occurred to me that I had to substitute him before the next test now.
The match ended and I read about the hand shakes, the doffing of the hat, the hugs, the carrying on the shoulders, and the lap of honour.
A champion was leaving the game and I still wondered why. Why so sudden? Why out of the blue? Why during a test? Why not get a farewell test if not a series like Saurav?
The answer to all those is because he is Anil Kumble.
A man who never put himself before the team, a man who never chased the spotlight, a man who always remained in the shadows.
For Kumble, the team came first, always. He wanted the emphasis on the test series, not his retirement, which I eventually found out wasn't all that out of the blue after all.
During his press conference Kumble said "...Anyway I had more or less decided this would be my last series." [Read in full here]
That is when it hit me that ofcourse he had decided. He must have before the series began. Maybe even during the summer. He would never have continued to play on knowing that he was past his best.
He just didn't want the focus to be on him.
It was India vs Australia, and he wanted it to be just that and not "Kumble's last test series".
He knew he was going even before Saurav did. So what if he didn't say it?
As he said he "would have ideally liked to have finished in Nagpur". But fate was cruel to him. The injury to his hand denied him what he had wanted.
Yet he got the most rousing farewell from his team mates on his favorite ground - maybe that's what fate wanted for him.
He deserved no less.
As my Sunday comes to an end, so does the career of one of the best bowlers to have played this game.
Definitely not out of the blue!
I got to work on time, called in for some garam chai, and logged on to my laptop.
As I sipped through the tea I watched the laptop take its sweet time logging on and then Windows taking its even sweeter time trying to start some programs and block some start-up programs.
Even the tea wasn't that sweet!
As all the icons came into place and the network told me it was up, I clicked onto the explorer and got on to Cricinfo for some live ball-by-ball of the final day at the Kotla.
A draw was the only result in my mind but I wanted another Gambhir 100 and some Johnson wickets for cheap fantasy points.
Niether happened and the day went on as I juggled between work, gmail, cricinfo, facebook, and the blogs.
Somewhere during the day I lost interest in the match and got engrossed in some animated gmail exchanges on several mailing lists.
That is when an email from Gaurav Sethi popped up. The subject was "who retired first" and in the mail was a link saying Anil or Saurav?.
I wondered what imaginary post NC had written this time when suddenly it occurred to me - Had Kumble announced his retirement?
NO! How could that be I thought. I looked at the watch and thought that the match had not ended surely and it was only days ago that Kumble was blasting the media on speculating about his retirement.
With all these thoughts in my mind I shifted to my Cricinfo window, which was now showing "network server error". I clicked on refresh and as the browser opened I read comments on the ball-by-ball from readers paying their tributes to Kumble who had announced his retirement during the tea interval.
I had said on numerous occasions that this would be Kumble's last test series but I never expected the announcement to come like this. Actually I didn't expect it at all with the way Kumble answered the media throughout the last month.
Then I read NC's post and I left a comment saying the same.
Who would have thought Kumble would be the first one to go out of the 5 seniors?
As the day went on, tributes kept coming in. I read them all.
I followed the ball-by-ball seeing Kumble take the new ball hoping he gets a wicket in his final spell. That would also give me some fantasy points.
Then it occurred to me that I had to substitute him before the next test now.
The match ended and I read about the hand shakes, the doffing of the hat, the hugs, the carrying on the shoulders, and the lap of honour.
A champion was leaving the game and I still wondered why. Why so sudden? Why out of the blue? Why during a test? Why not get a farewell test if not a series like Saurav?
The answer to all those is because he is Anil Kumble.
A man who never put himself before the team, a man who never chased the spotlight, a man who always remained in the shadows.
For Kumble, the team came first, always. He wanted the emphasis on the test series, not his retirement, which I eventually found out wasn't all that out of the blue after all.
During his press conference Kumble said "...Anyway I had more or less decided this would be my last series." [Read in full here]
That is when it hit me that ofcourse he had decided. He must have before the series began. Maybe even during the summer. He would never have continued to play on knowing that he was past his best.
He just didn't want the focus to be on him.
It was India vs Australia, and he wanted it to be just that and not "Kumble's last test series".
He knew he was going even before Saurav did. So what if he didn't say it?
As he said he "would have ideally liked to have finished in Nagpur". But fate was cruel to him. The injury to his hand denied him what he had wanted.
Yet he got the most rousing farewell from his team mates on his favorite ground - maybe that's what fate wanted for him.
He deserved no less.
As my Sunday comes to an end, so does the career of one of the best bowlers to have played this game.
Definitely not out of the blue!
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