Kumble joins 300-wickets club

Leg-spinner Anil Kumble joined the elite club of bowlers who have claimed 300 or more Test wickets on Thursday, becoming the second Indian after the legendary Kapil Dev to do so.

The 31-year-old from Bangalore trapped last man Mathew Hoggard for one on the second day of the third and final cricket Test against England to claim his 300th Test victim in his 66th match. England were all out for 336 in their first innings.

Kumble is 18th bowler in the world and the first Indian spinner to join the select band. West Indian Courtney Walsh leads the list with 519 Test wickets followed by Kapil Dev who has 434.

Kumble, who arrived on the Test scene as a relatively unknown 19-year-old, made his debut in the second Test against England at Manchester on the 1990 tour.

He has been a regular member of the Indian squad, except when nursing injuries, since the historic tour to South Africa in 1992-93 and is its main strike bowler for a long time now.

In 1998-99, he became only the second bowler in Test history, after Jim Laker of England, to claim all the ten wickets in an innings when he dismissed all the Pakistani batsmen in a Test in New Delhi. Laker, an off-spinner, achieved the feat against Australia in 1956 at Old Trafford in which he took 19 wickets.

England's tour of India : Complete coverage

Mail Cricket Editor