Performance of the Day - Anil Kumble

On a day when some of the Trumpet's favourite cricketers (Stuart Law, David Sales, Mushtaq Ahmed) showed how hard men play the game (fiercely, fairly, fruitfully), there was only going to be one winner of the PotD - fellow hard man Anil Kumble.

The Trumpet first saw the bounding, bespectacled Kumble on India's 1990 tour when he was something of an oddity in world cricket in being an attacking spin bowler - how times have changed. Fast forward six years, and the Trumpet was at Lord's for Dickie Bird's farewell and Ganguly's and Dravid's welcome, and there was Kumble again, contact lenses wearing and clean shaven by now, but unmistakeably swift through the air and off the pitch. Incredibly, after 117 Tests and still as trim and fit as ever, competing with Daniel Vettori for cricket's most donnish-looking player, Kumble hit his maiden Test ton today and, 1000 miles from the Oval, The Trumpet stood and applauded.

Nice guys can come first.

[The Tooting Trumpet] [Image: Getty)