Five successful Indian cricketers in county cricket

4. Anil Kumble (Surrey, Leicester and Northamptonshire)

India’s champion leg-spinner turned out for Northamptonshire in 1995 after Indian captain Mohammad Azharuddin contacted former England player Allan Lamb and requested him to sign his compatriot as a replacement for West Indies pacer Curtly Ambrose.

Kumble accepted without hesitation and did not even discuss the terms of the contract. His chief aim was to bring more variety into his bowling, and to get a feel of the pitches in England. India were to tour that country in 1996.

During the one-day games, he stuck to a lower trajectory and bowled quick, while for the Championship games, he would bowl slower than normal; notably sending down six googlies to a left-hander. In that golden season, Kumble picked up 105 wickets – 64 of those for Northants.

However, on the England tour in 1996, Kumble struggled on lively pitches, bagging only five wickets in the three-Test series. Four years later, he turned out for Leicestershire, playing for them in the PPP Healthcare County Championship.

Later, Kumble was signed by Surrey for the 2006 season, and took 8/100 in a seven-wicket defeat of his old county Northants before a shoulder injury ruled him out for the remainder of the season.

He returned to international cricket in some style – he bagged all ten wickets against Pakistan in the famous Test at Delhi in 1999, helped by his experience of playing for Northamptonshire.

After his stint with Leicestershire, Kumble displayed his grit by removing Brian Lara in the Antigua Test of 2002, a game made more notable by the fact that he bowled with a broken jaw.

He eventually retired from international cricket in 2008, and he credits his first season with Northants in 1995 as a vital learning experience in terms of variety – his googly acquired potency and troubled international batsmen for a long time.