India v Pakistan 2nd Test

A series level at one each

India and Pakistan met for a two-Test series in early 1999, the first bilateral Test cricket the two countries had played against each other in India for years, and the occasion carried weight well beyond the result. Pakistan had won the first Test in Chennai by 12 runs, one of the closest finishes in the history of the fixture, and the second Test at Feroz Shah Kotla in Delhi arrived as a decider in front of a capacity crowd. Mohammad Azharuddin won the toss for India and chose to bat first on a pitch already expected to take turn as the match wore on, with both Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh named in the side alongside the frontline pace of Javagal Srinath and Venkatesh Prasad, a spin-heavy attack built with exactly this kind of surface in mind.

Ramesh's sixty and a modest lead

Ramesh and VVS Laxman gave India a solid start, putting on 88 for the first wicket before Laxman fell for 35, and Ramesh went on to make 60 before he too was out, the score on 113. From there India's middle order came and went quickly, Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid both gone by the time the score reached 191, and it was Mohammad Azharuddin who held the innings together, batting through to make 67 before he was the sixth man out. India were bowled out for 252, with Saqlain Mushtaq, the Pakistan off spinner, taking 5 for 94 with his mix of orthodox and doosra deliveries. Pakistan replied with 172, undone by Anil Kumble's leg spin, 4 for 75, and Harbhajan Singh's off spin, 3 for 30, Shahid Afridi's 32 the top score in a Pakistan innings that never got settled against India's two spinners; Saeed Anwar, so important to Pakistan's batting throughout the series, was out for just 1. India's first-innings lead was 80, useful but not decisive on a surface that both sides could see was turning more each day.

Saqlain strikes back

India's second innings began badly, VVS Laxman out for just 8 with the score on 15, but Rahul Dravid and Sadagoppan Ramesh both rebuilt in turn. Dravid was out at 100, Sachin Tendulkar soon after at 168, and Ramesh went on to make 96 before he fell at 183, the highest score of the innings. Mohammad Azharuddin and the wicketkeeper Nayan Mongia both departed cheaply in successive balls at 199, but Sourav Ganguly found support from the tail: Javagal Srinath made a rapid 49 down the order, and his eighth-wicket stand with Ganguly added exactly 100 runs, from 231 to 331, before Venkatesh Prasad and Harbhajan Singh both fell in quick succession at the very end and Ganguly was left unbeaten on 62 as the innings closed. Saqlain Mushtaq bowled 46.4 overs and took another five wickets, 5 for 122, giving him ten wickets in the match and showing exactly the kind of control that made him one of the leading spinners in the world at the time. India were eventually all out for 339, setting Pakistan a target of 420 to win the match and the series.

Ganguly and Srinath set the target

A target of 420 on a pitch already showing wear after three days was always going to be difficult, but Pakistan had batted well enough in patches through the match to suggest a fight was possible. Saeed Anwar, who had managed just 1 in the first innings, would need something much bigger this time if Pakistan were to have any hope. What nobody in Delhi expected was that the entire Pakistan innings would come down to one bowler at the other end.

Kumble takes the first nine

Anil Kumble bowled unchanged for long spells from one end, his leg breaks and top spinners gripping and bouncing off a pitch that had deteriorated exactly as expected. Shahid Afridi fell early, caught for 41 with the score on 101, and Ijaz Ahmed followed at the very same total, lbw without scoring. Inzamam-ul-Haq and Mohammad Yousuf went cheaply soon after, both out with the score on 115, and Moin Khan followed at 127. Through all of it Saeed Anwar held one end, batting on while wickets fell at the other, and by the time he was finally caught for 69, with the total on 128, six wickets had already gone down, every single one of them to Kumble. Saleem Malik added some resistance, making 15 before he was bowled, and Mushtaq Ahmed and Saqlain Mushtaq both fell in quick succession soon after, leaving only Wasim Akram to counter-attack from number eight, making 37, the third-highest score of the innings, before he became Kumble's tenth and final wicket as the last man out. By the time nine wickets had fallen, every one of them credited to Kumble, the ground had begun to sense that something unusual was happening.

The tenth wicket

The last Pakistan wicket to fall was Wasim Akram, and when it went down, caught, it went to Kumble as well. He finished with figures of 10 for 74 from 26.3 overs, taking every wicket to fall in the innings, and Pakistan were all out for 207. India won the match by 212 runs and the series 1-1 was settled with a result that would be remembered for one bowler's afternoon far more than for the series outcome itself.

One of two in history

At the time, Kumble's 10 for 74 was only the second instance in the history of Test cricket of a bowler taking all ten wickets in an innings, after Jim Laker's 10 for 53 for England against Australia in 1956. A third came more than two decades later, when Ajaz Patel took 10 for 119 for New Zealand against India at Mumbai in December 2021, but Kumble's remains the only one of the three taken by an Indian bowler. Kumble was named man of the match, and the achievement remains the single most celebrated bowling performance by an Indian in Test cricket. The full scorecard, innings by innings, is on this page, and both sides' wider Test histories are on the India and Pakistan team pages. In The Follow-On you can take the ball on a turning pitch yourself and try to match what Kumble did that afternoon in Delhi.

Sources

• CricArcade Test archive: the full scorecard, fall of wickets and bowling figures on this page
• ESPNcricinfo: Pakistan in India 1998/99, 2nd Test scorecard and report
• Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 2000: Pakistan's tour of India