Delhi 1999: How Anil Kumble Took All Ten Pakistan Wickets in One Innings

On 7 February 1999, the fourth day of the second Test between India and Pakistan at the Feroz Shah Kotla in Delhi, Anil Kumble took every Pakistan wicket that fell in the second innings. His figures were 26.3 overs, 9 maidens, 74 runs, 10 wickets. India won by 212 runs. Only Jim Laker, with 10 for 53 against Australia at Old Trafford in 1956, had done it in a Test before, and only one bowler has done it since.

The figures are famous. The way the innings unfolded is told less often, and it shows how much a perfect ten depends on things the bowler cannot control.

The match before the spell

India arrived in Delhi a game behind. In the first Test at Chennai, from 28 to 31 January, Pakistan had won by 12 runs, despite a second-innings 136 from Sachin Tendulkar. Saqlain Mushtaq took five wickets in each innings of that match. With only two Tests in the series, Delhi was India's last chance to avoid defeat.

India won the toss in Delhi and batted, making 252 in 91.5 overs, with Mohammad Azharuddin top-scoring on 67 and Saqlain taking 5 for 94. Pakistan replied with 172. Kumble took 4 for 75 and Harbhajan Singh 3 for 30. In their second innings India made 339, built around 96 from Sadagoppan Ramesh, who had made his Test debut in Chennai the week before. Saqlain again took five, this time 5 for 122.

That left Pakistan needing 420 to win, with two days to play.

From 101 without loss to 128 for six

Saeed Anwar and Shahid Afridi began the chase as if the target were within reach. They added 101 for the first wicket, and no wicket fell before lunch. Kumble’s share of the morning was a short spell of five overs for 25 runs.

After lunch the innings turned. In the 25th over Afridi, on 41, was given out caught behind by wicketkeeper Nayan Mongia, a decision Afridi made clear he did not accept. Off the next ball Ijaz Ahmed was leg-before without scoring. Two wickets had fallen at 101.

Pakistan had moved on to 115 for two when they lost two more wickets inside three deliveries, without adding a run. Inzamam-ul-Haq, on six, dragged an inside edge into his own stumps; Yousuf Youhana, the batter later known as Mohammad Yousuf, was then given out lbw for nought. Moin Khan was caught by Sourav Ganguly for three. When Anwar, who had held the innings together for 69, was caught by VVS Laxman at short leg, Pakistan were 128 for six. Six wickets had gone for 27 runs, all to the same bowler.

The resistance, and the last four

The seventh wicket put on 58, the only real counter-attack of the afternoon. It ended at 186 when Saleem Malik, on 15, went for a pull and was bowled by a quicker ball. Kumble had seven.

At 198, Mushtaq Ahmed and Saqlain Mushtaq fell to consecutive deliveries: Mushtaq caught by Rahul Dravid for one, Saqlain leg-before for nought. Kumble now had nine, with Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis, the last pair, together.

Akram scored 37, the third-highest score of the innings, before he edged a leg-break to Laxman at short leg. Pakistan were all out for 207 in 60.3 overs, with Waqar not out on six. Kumble’s spell from the restart read 21.3 overs, 9 maidens, 49 runs, 10 wickets. His match figures were 14 for 149.

How the ten were taken

The dismissals show a leg-spinner who attacked the stumps and the close fielders. Three batters were leg-before, two were bowled, and five were caught: Laxman took two catches, Mongia, Ganguly and Dravid one each. None was stumped or run out.

Kumble did not fit the usual picture of a leg-spinner. He had started out as a fast bowler and relied on pace, bounce and accuracy more than on big turn; his nickname, “Jumbo”, came from the speed of his deliveries. In Delhi, two of his wickets, Inzamam’s and Malik’s, came from balls that hit the stumps, and Malik’s was beaten by a quicker one.

All ten wickets came from the same end, the one where umpire AV Jayaprakash was standing. The other umpire was Steve Bucknor.

The other bowlers’ part

Bowling figures for the rest of India’s attack in that innings tell the other half of the story. Javagal Srinath bowled 12 overs for 50 runs, Venkatesh Prasad 4 for 15 and Harbhajan Singh 18 for 51. Between them they sent down 34 overs, conceded 116 runs and took no wickets.

Some of that was by design once the record was in sight. With nine down, captain Azharuddin asked Srinath to bowl wide of the stumps so that Akram and Waqar would not get out at his end and Kumble could finish the job. Srinath later said nobody needed to tell him not to take the last wicket.

The point that follows is interpretation rather than record: a ten-wicket innings is not a measure of one bowler alone. Harbhajan’s 18 wicketless overs were not wasted; they kept the scoring in check while Kumble attacked from the other end. A slip catch off Srinath, or an edge off Harbhajan, would have ended the record without changing the result. The feat needs bowlers at the other end who keep things tight and, by luck or by choice, do not take a wicket.

What it meant

For India, the result mattered as much as the record. The 212-run win levelled the two-match series at 1-1 a week after the narrow defeat in Chennai. Azharuddin called the performance “really superb”. Kumble described it as “like a dream”.

Pakistan’s captain Akram pointed to the toss as a crucial factor, while accepting that India had played better. Chasing 420 in the fourth innings was always going to be hard. But the toss does not explain how a side that stood at 101 without loss lost all ten wickets for 106.

Ten for ten, then and since

Kumble was 28 at the time, having been born on 17 October 1970 in Bangalore. He finished his Test career with 619 wickets in 132 Tests, announcing his retirement in November 2008 during a Test against Australia at the same Delhi ground.

For more than two decades Laker and Kumble were alone. Then, in December 2021, New Zealand’s left-arm spinner Ajaz Patel took all ten in India’s first innings at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, the city of his birth, with figures of 10 for 119 from 47.5 overs. Unlike Laker and Kumble, Patel finished on the losing side.

Three bowlers in the whole history of Test cricket is a measure of how unlikely the feat is. Kumble’s version stands out for another reason: it came with his team a Test down, in the last match of the series, and it was the performance that saved the series.