The Perfect Ten : Jim Laker, Anil Kumble, AK 74 & Richard Stokes.
Compulsively obsessed and crazy that most of us are for the game of cricket - gentleman’s game (apologies to the women who deservingly are now a part of this club), I am certain that most of my friends will immediately identify an inextricable relationship between Jim Laker, Anil Kumble and The Perfect Ten. But then why have I included other two terms - AK 74 and Richard Stokes - in the title of my blog, which apparently appears to be incongruous in the company of Kumble, Laker and Perfect Ten? Can any of you make a guess? For those who can and for those who can’t, I hope this post will be of interest to you all, more so because one of the video clips, which has gone viral on WhatsApp on 31st July, is the highlights of the cricket test match in which Jim Laker created history by becoming the first man in the annals of history of cricket to take all the ten wickets in an test innings and the only man to take 19 wickets in a cricket match in any form of cricket. He achieved this unique feat on 31st July 1956 while playing against their arch rivals Australia. To commemorate this historic occasion a video highlights of Laker taking all ten wickets has gone viral and I too received this video clip from more than one group on my WhatsApp. Our very own Anil Kumble - the Jumbo - is in the August company of Jim Laker having taken a perfect ten in an innings in the cricket test match. Equally significant is the opponents against whom they have achieved this unique honour. Laker did it against their arch rivals, the Australians and Kumble achieved it against our arch rivals - the Pakistanis.
During the 140 plus years of long cricketing history there have been extraordinary moments that have been played out on the cricketing field, which indelibly etched in the annals of cricketing history and in memories of cricket loving audience. The Perfect Ten wickets that Anil Kumble and Jim Laker achieved in their respective test match innings will definitely be on top of those cricketing moments. During the ‘Cricket Connects : India - England Cricket Relations’, exhibition, which I had the honour to curate commemorating the seventieth year of Indian Independence, one of the eleven sections of the exhibition was titled ‘Hits and Misses’. This section covered those extraordinary hit and miss moments in history of Cricket relationship between India and England and one of the hits included in the section is the perfect ten common connect that Anil Kumble and Jim Laker share. The section also covered some of the infamous incidents (misses) between the two teams. The exhibition and the accompanying richly illustrated exhibition catalog, captures these hits and misses cricketing moments that the two countries - India and England - share as a common connect.
Jim Laker was the first player in the annals of cricketing history to take all 10 wickets in a Test match innings. He achieved this remarkable feat, while playing against their arch rival Australia, in the second Australian innings of thr fourth Test match that was played at Old Trafford, during the Ashes series in 1956. Laker returned with a magical and unachievable match figures of 19 wickets for a paltry 90 runs (9 for 37 in the first innings and 10 for 53 in the second). England won the Test match by an innings and 170 runs, with just over an hour to spare and retained the Ashes cup. This memorable game will always be known as Laker's Match.
The Old Trafford Test match was full of drama and will continue to be recognised as one of the most exciting yet controversial matches for a long time. The controversy arose over the preparation of the pitch and for days’ cricketers, officials, critics and the general cricketing public could talk of little else than this game and the pitch. The culmination of the excitement was when Laker successfully appealed for a LBW decision against Len Maddocks. Moments later the match was over and Laker had taken all the ten wickets in an innings. Maddocks, who with Laker entered the cricketing history, was livid about the pitch and his post match statement sums up the frustration that he and his teammates had on the nature of the pitch, which the curator of the Old Trafford had prepared for the match. He said ‘Bradman wouldn’t have lasted on that pitch”.
Tension had mounted as Laker captured his eighth and ninth wickets. Time was ticking by and rain had all but ruined the match. The only wish in the minds of the English players was victory and retention of the Ashes and no one ever bothered who took the wickets to earn them the coveted victory. The question of giving Laker his tenth wicket, to go down in history as the first man to do so, was never on the minds of England players since time was ticking by and rain had all but washed out the Test Match to end in draw. Destiny had other plans for England and Laker. With just one wicket standing between England and Australia and rain almost a certainty, the bowler entrusted to bowl from the other end was Lakers spin partner Lock, who repeatedly kept beating the bat, fortunately for Laker it was not Lock’s day. The momentous occasion came at twenty-seven minutes past five when Laker scalped the last Australian wicket of Len Maddocks and ended up with a perfect 10 in an innings to spin Australia to an innings defeat to win the Test and series for England. Laker had earned his triumph by remarkable control of length and spin. The significance of this historic feat can be seen in the statement of the legendary Don Bradman, who said ‘it was a feat unlikely to be equalled’ and it continues to be so. But while those 19 wickets and Lakers perfect 10 are still remembered, what has largely been forgotten is that it was the dusty and controversial Manchester pitch, which commanded almost as much attention during and immediately after the game.
Kumble’s Jumbo Feat.
Jim Lakers unique feat of a perfect ten was repeated 43 years later by the Indian spinner Anil Kumble. It was on February 7, 1999 that Kumble achieved the ‘Jumbo’ feat of scalping all 10 wickets in an innings against their arch rivals Pakistan at the Ferozeshah Kotla ground in New Delhi. The leg-spinner’s figures of 10 for 74 were instrumental in India’s 212-run win over their arch rivals. Kumble had single-handedly crushed the Pakistanis. This was the time when terrorism was reigning in the Kashmir valley and Pakistani sponsored terrorists and their arsenal AK-47 used to hog national headlines. The AK-47 is a compact automatic rifle, which Stalin’s engineers clandestinely unveiled in 1947. This gun, with the fall of the erstwhile USSR, reached the hands of most terrorists. Dubbed the Avtomat Kalashnikova-47, AK-47, it became the amoral massacre machine in the hands of the terrorists across the globe and more particularly in Kashmir. The decade of 90s was a period when Kashmiri terrorists wielding AK 47 and killing innocents had hogged headlines all across Indian media. Knowing well the connect that this deadly, Pakistan sponsored AK - 47, weapon had on the minds of the Indian audience, the Indian Express disrupted this term imaginatively to herald the momentous achievement of Kumble, which they captured in their newspaper with a headline ‘AK-74 : Kumble guns down Pakistanis’ referring to Anil Kumble’s dismissals of all ten wickets of the Pakistani players for 74 runs. Referring to this occasion Kumble later said ‘A 'Perfect Ten' isn't something you set out to achieve as a cricketer. I would attribute the events of 7th February 1999 to destiny’.
Incredibly there was one man who was witness to both these feats - Richard Stokes. He witnessed both these incidents on the cricket ground. He was 10 years old when he went to watch the 1956 Ashes Test at Old Trafford with his father. Stokes, a die hard cricket fan, recalled that he had witnessed Jim Laker becoming the first man to take all 10 wickets in a Test match at the Old Trafford in 1956. Coincidentally Stokes was on a business trip to New Delhi from Germany where he was working and on knowing that a cricket match is going on between India and Pakistan, he preferred to take a break from his business and went to watch the cricket match on 7th Feb 1999. Incidentally it was also his birthday and therefore he wanted a break from his work. As luck would have it he gave himself a unique birthday gift for he had watched both the feats of Laker and Kumble from the cricket ground create history of taking perfect 10.
Kumble, unlike Laker, was supported by his team mates in his achievement of a perfect 10. Sachin (Tendulkar), who is often known to be a believer of some kind of a superstitious thinking on ground, did his bit to turn things around. He started handing Kumble’s cap and sweater to the umpire at the start of an over, in an attempt to 'bring Kumble luck’ and it worked and it so happened that whenever he did that, a wicket fell. The floodgates opened with Afridi's dismissal. When Kumble got the first 8 wickets in fairly quick succession, post a century opening stand by the Pakistani opening pair, the teammates strategized to grab all ten for Kumble and provide him an opportunity to enter in the elite club of Laker. Javagal Srinath was bowling at the other end when the ninth wicket fell, He bowled wide of the stumps with a clear strategy not to take a wicket. Waqar Younis, the last man, went for a heave in that over, and skied the ball in the long-leg region. The ball was going straight into the hands of Sadagoppan Ramesh, but Srinath and his team mates yelled Ramesh not to go for the catch and it was Srinath - the bowler – who shouted the loudest. Kumble finished off the innings from the other end by taking the tenth wicket of Wasim Akram, caught by Laxman to herald a celebration.
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