Anil Kumble Took All Ten Pakistan Wickets for 74 Runs in 26.3 Overs at the Feroz Shah Kotla on 7 February 1999, the Second Perfect Ten in Test Cricket

Anil Kumble took all ten Pakistan wickets for 74 runs in 26.3 overs, 9 of them maidens, at the Feroz Shah Kotla in Delhi on 7 February 1999. India won the second Test by 212 runs and levelled the two-Test series at 1-1. He was the second bowler in Test history to take ten wickets in an innings, after England’s Jim Laker, who did it against Australia at Old Trafford in 1956, according to the International Cricket Council (ICC).

The scorecard in Gulf News shows how complete it was. Of the ten dismissals, five were catches, three were leg-before and two were bowled, and Pakistan, set 420 to win, were all out for 207 in 60.3 overs. The ground is now called the Arun Jaitley Stadium, after the Delhi and District Cricket Association renamed it on 12 September 2019, The Tribune reported.

The match before the spell

Pakistan had won the first Test at Chennai by 12 runs, India TV reports, so India needed a win in Delhi to share the series. In his own account, published by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), Kumble writes that it was the first Test series between the two sides in nearly a decade, that the World Cup in England was a few months away, and that the objective at Delhi was “Victory at all costs.” India’s only World Cup title at that point was the 1983 win under Kapil Dev.

India made 252 in the first innings and bowled Pakistan out for 172, with Kumble taking 4 wickets for 75. Sadagoppan Ramesh scored 60 and 96 in the match, according to Kumble’s remarks in The Tribune, and India reached 339 in the second innings. That left Pakistan 420 to win with almost two days left, Kumble writes.

101 without loss at lunch

The target looked steep on a pitch that was wearing, Kumble writes, but the openers Saeed Anwar and Shahid Afridi reached lunch on the fourth day without being separated. Gulf News gives their stand as 101, with Anwar on 69 when he was eventually out and Afridi on 41. Wisden’s account says the partnership gave Pakistan “an unexpected upper hand.”

Kumble writes that he knew he had to raise his game and that the team sensed one wicket would change things, because a new batsman would find the strip hard to settle on. Sachin Tendulkar helped in his own way. He began handing Kumble’s cap and sweater to the umpire at the start of an over to bring luck, Kumble recalls in the BCCI piece, “whenever he did that, a wicket fell.”

The ten wickets in order

Gulf News’s scorecard gives the dismissals and the fall of wickets, and the list below follows it:

• Afridi, caught behind by Nayan Mongia (101 for 1). India TV places this in the 25th over, and Kumble says Afridi got a nick.
• Ijaz Ahmed, leg-before to the next ball (101 for 2).
• Inzamam-ul-Haq, bowled (115 for 3). Kumble says he committed to the front foot and inside-edged onto the stumps.
• Mohammad Yousuf, leg-before (115 for 4).
• Moin Khan, caught by Sourav Ganguly (127 for 5).
• Anwar, caught at short leg by VVS Laxman (128 for 6). Kumble says he switched between over and round the wicket to break Anwar’s concentration.
• Saleem Malik, bowled (186 for 7).
• Mushtaq Ahmed, caught by Rahul Dravid (198 for 8).
• Saqlain Mushtaq, leg-before (198 for 9).
• Wasim Akram, caught by Laxman at short leg (207 all out).

Laxman and Dravid, two of the close catchers here, put on 376 together for the fifth wicket at Eden Gardens in March 2001, a match covered in Laxman’s 281 and Dravid’s 180.

Kumble says tea came after his sixth wicket and that his seventh, eighth and ninth followed it, the last two off consecutive balls. Dawn’s 2007 report agrees, putting Pakistan at 176 for 6 at the interval.

Wisden describes a two-paced pitch, dusty and uneven in bounce, on which Kumble bowled a flat, quick line at off stump with a slip, a silly point and a short leg close in.

Srinath’s wides and the tenth wicket

Javagal Srinath was bowling at the other end when the ninth wicket fell. Kumble writes that Srinath “bowled wide of the stumps” and obviously was not trying to take a wicket. Waqar Younis, the last man in, skied a ball in that over, Kumble recalls, and team-mates shouted at the fielder under it, Ramesh, not to catch it. Wisden says Ramesh almost took a top edge. Kumble writes that it would not have been fair to make a bowler of Srinath’s standing bowl another over like that, and he walked back to his mark.

Akram edged the ball in Kumble’s next over, and Laxman caught it at short leg. Wisden says Kumble ended up on his team-mates’ shoulders. Laxman threw the ball in the air and did not see where it went, Kumble writes. Venkatesh Prasad had pocketed it and gave it to him an hour later.

Two decisions that were questioned

Two of the early dismissals drew comment. Wisden says Afridi was convinced the sound was bat brushing pad, and Dawn’s writer calls both Afridi’s and Ijaz Ahmed’s dismissals dicey decisions by the umpire, A. V. Jayaprakash, who like Kumble comes from Bangalore. Kumble’s own account, quoted above, says Afridi got a nick.

Akram’s reaction was recorded by The Tribune on the day. He congratulated Kumble and said ten wickets were not an easy matter, adding “I would love to have them myself.” India’s captain, Mohammad Azharuddin, said Kumble “bowled well” and kept his cool. Kumble called the performance “like a dream.”

The bowler behind the figures

Kumble was born in Bangalore on 17 October 1970. He made his one-day debut at Sharjah on 25 April 1990 against Sri Lanka, according to the ICC and Gulf News, and his Test debut that summer at Old Trafford at 19. His first Test wicket was Allan Lamb, caught at silly point, Wisden’s Almanack says. His hundredth Test wicket came in his 21st Test, at home in Bangalore.

In 1995 he took 105 first-class wickets, playing for Northamptonshire, and was named a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1996. The Almanack describes him as a brisk top-spin bowler who makes the ball turn a little both ways.

The government of India named him among its Padma Shri recipients for 2005, in the sports (cricket) category, in a Gazette notification dated 27 March 2005. The ICC inducted him into its Hall of Fame in 2015 and records 619 Test wickets in 132 Tests, which it says is the highest by an Indian, and 337 one-day wickets. Wisden’s Almanack gives his Test average as 29.65. He captained India in 14 Tests, the ICC says.

Laker, Kumble and Patel

Laker’s 10 for 53 at Old Trafford in July 1956 came in the second innings of a match in which he took 19 wickets for 90, the ICC says, and the figures remain the best for a Test innings. The Tribune’s PTI report of 8 February 1999 ranked Kumble’s 10 for 74 second on the all-time list for an innings and counted his match figures of 14 for 149 as the third best by an Indian at that time.

The record stood at two names for 22 years after Delhi. In December 2021 New Zealand’s Ajaz Patel, born in Mumbai, took 10 for 119 against India at the Wankhede Stadium, Reuters reported, and became the third bowler to do it. Kumble posted a message to him on Twitter: “Welcome to the club.”