ONE-HIT WONDERS Partners in Kryme were top of the charts with Turtle Power when a bespectacled Anil Kumble made his Test debut at Old Trafford in August 1990. Having started out as a quick bowler, he switched to leg-spin in his teens, and his first steps at the top level were tentative ones. He didn’t get the shellacking that Shane Warne received from the Indians 16 months later on his debut, but match figures of three for 170 didn’t turn heads in a country still clinging to memories of the celebrated spin quartet.

The comparisons with the famous four haven’t usually been flattering to Kumble, largely because his style is worlds apart from the classical loop-and-turn school that produced Bishan Singh Bedi and Erapalli Prasanna. He has far more in common with another Bangalore man, Bhagwat Chandrasekhar, whose freakishly quick leg-breaks destroyed England at The Oval in 1971.

Statistically, though, Kumble left them all behind years ago, and having taken No 563 on Saturday with a superb googly to Michael Vaughan, only Warne and Muttiah Muralitharan lie ahead. You sense, though, that he will never be placed on the same pedestal, despite having helped win matches for India in just about every Test-playing country.

That has much to do with how he was employed by various captains. Until recently, India could barely rustle up two or three decent pace bowlers for an overseas tour, leaving Kumble to fill the void as a stock bowler rather than an attacking one. “I never worried about averages and strike-rates,” he once said with a smile. “If I did, I’d have been more careful of the number of overs I bowled on the opening days of Tests when there was nothing in the pitch.”

Never was that more starkly illustrated than on the disastrous tour of Australia in 1999-2000. With the new-ball bowlers performing fitfully, Kumble bowled over after over against batsmen content to blunt whatever threat he posed. By the end of the three Tests, he had just five wickets at 90, numbers that would be used to flagellate him each time India’s dismal touring record came up for discussion.

In 2001, watching from the sidelines after shoulder surgery from which he feared he might never recover, he saw Harbhajan Singh usurp his place with 32 wickets against the same opponents. For the next 30 months, the Turbanator, as the Aussies nicknamed him, was the main man, with Kumble missing out each time India played a solitary spinner. It hurt his pride, but there were no toys thrown out of the pram or indignant hissy fits in front of the cameras.

Kumble waited for his chance. It came at Adelaide in December 2003 after Harbhajan opted for the surgeon’s knife himself. But the return to the high life couldn’t have been more inauspicious, with Australia romping to 400 for five and Kumble bowling 28 overs for 115 runs and the wicket of Justin Langer.

A lesser man might have wilted, but Kumble bounded in the next morning to trigger a collapse that gave India the narrowest of footholds to balance on. And in the midst of the eulogies giving to the Indian batsmen after the drawn series, it was nearly forgotten that Mr Dependable had taken 24 wickets in three Tests, including 12 for 279 to ruin Steve Waugh’s last game in Sydney.

By then, he had evolved as a bowler. With most batsmen reading his quicker one better, he strove for variety, giving the ball more air and developing an effective googly. The figures bear out the change. Before Adelaide, he had taken 358 wickets at 28.21. Since then, his 203 wickets (prior to this Test) have cost more (29.27), but the strike-rate has come down (57.5 balls per wicket compared with 68.8).

The jibes about lack of Warne-like turn no longer bother him and he has certainly left his mark. After all, not even Warne could boast of a perfect ten (10 for 74 against Pakistan at Delhi in 1999) or a Test century.