MOHALI, Dec 6 (UNI): Anil Kumble ripped through the heart of the batting line claiming six wickets as he spun India to a ten wicket win over England in the fourth day of the first cricket test match here today.
Though England managed to survive the humilation of innings defeat, the inevitable happened as the visitors crumbled like cookies against the spinner.
Kumble, who finished the match with a haul of eight wickets giving away 133 runs 2 for 52 in first innings and 6 for 81 in second was declared the man of the match.
The defeat was expected, but no body expected it to be so quick and so sudden.
The visiting batsmen once again failed against a spin attack on a track which did not provide much help to the bowlers.
One shudders to think as what would happen to this batting side from England in the next two tests to be played in Ahmedabad and Bangalore where the wickets are spinner friendly.
Barring Graham Thrope, who scored defiant 62 before being caught by Kumble off his own bowling, non of the other English batsmen showed any kind of discipline.
They hardly looked focused and threw away the wickets without putting up any resistance.
This was the 17th time that Kumble took a haul of five or more wickets in an innings in his carrer.
Before this, Kumbles best performance against England was in 1992-93 at Chennai where he took six for 69.
England lost two wickets in the tenth over after the lunch, as Kumble sent back Ramprakash and Flintoff in a space of three balls.
It was the 56th over of the Englands second innings when Kumble struck to break the 72 run fourth wicket stand between Thrope and Ramprakash and that signaled visitors downfall.
Ramprakash missed a Kumble delivery which came to him from outside his off stump and kept low to trap him palpably in front of his middle stump.
The batsman scored 28, which included three boundaries.
He stayed at the crease for 81 minutes and faced 61 balls.
New batsman Andrew Flintoff greeted Kumble with a boundary when he ondrove a straight delivery but in the very next ball Kumble had his revange.
Flintoff jabbed tentatively outside his off stumps, the ball hit his pad just and then flew off the face of the bat and Ganguly made no mistake in taking a catch at silly point.
Craig White joined Thrope and the duo played watchful cricket, waiting for the loose ball to come along and that paid dividend.
Thrope reached his 50 with a four and the two took the score from 163 for five to 196 when white did not read a Harbhajan delivery which left his off stump.
The ball taking the outside edge for wicket keeper Deep Dasgupta to take the catch.
White made 22 (3x4, 33b, 37 balls) and effectively ended Englands resistance As the fourth days play began, English batsmen continued to read devil in the wicket which is not theirs.
Their plight is of their own making.
There was nothing spectacular in the bowling and the three batsmen, who went back to pavillion, virually threw away their wickets.
The pre-lunch game saw 26 overs being bowled in which the Indians conceded 93 runs to the visitors but claimed three important wickets.
Yesterday the visitors had scored 34 runs off 20 overs.
Medium pacer Tinu Yohanna and spinner Harbhajan Singh opened the attack for India but the England openers Butcher and Trescothik played them with ease.
After batting confidently in the first hour, in which they added 34 runs to their overnight total of 34, taking their partnership to 68, Mark Butcher became a bit adventurist and tried to pull a short delivery from Yohanan but top edged it and substitute Martin Jacon took a simple catch at square leg.
The South Paw opener made 18 runs, which included two hits to the fence.
He batted for 127 minutes and faced 90 balls.
Nasser Hussain joined trescothick and the two took the score to 82 when Trescothick fell to Yohanan on a similar ball that had sent Butcher back to pavillion.
Trescothik played a pull shot, got it in the middle but only to see Iqbal Siddiqui taking a brilliant catch at backward square leg.
He made 46 runs, with the help of nine boundaries.
He stayed at the crease for 146 minutes facing 95 balls.
Englands hopes of saving the match got another jolt when five runs later Nasser Hussain was also sent back.
He got an inside edge on Kumbles straight delivery which hit his middle stump.
His contribution to teams score was 12 (2x4).
After lunch, Kumble and Harbhajan skittled the remaining seven English batsmen 31.4 overs.
The visitors added 108 runs to their lunch total of 127 for 3 before being bowled out.
This was the fourth time that India scored a ten wicket win in test cricket.
It had done so twice against Pakistan and once against New Zealand.
SCOREBOARD: England first innings 238 India first innings 469 England second innings Mark Butcher c sub (Martin) b Tinu Yohannan 18 Marcus Trescothick c Siddiqui b Tinu Yohannan 46 Nasser Hussain b Anil Kumble 12 Graham Thorpe c b Anil Kumble 62 Mark Ramprakash lbw b Anil Kumble 28 Andrew Flintoff c Ganguly b Anil Kumble 04 Craig White c Dasgupta b Harbhajan Singh 22 James Foster lbw b Harbhajan Singh 05 James Ormond b Anil Kumble 00 Richard Dawson b Anil Kumble 11 Mathew Hoggard not out 00 Extras (b-10, lb-13, nb-3, w-1) 27 Total 235 Fall of wickets : 1-68, 2-82, 3-87, 4-159, 5-163, 6-196, 7-206, 8-207, 9-224 Bowling : Tinu Yohannan 17-3-56-2 (nb-3 w-1), Iqbal Siddiqui 8-3-16-0, Anil Kumble 28.4-6-81-6, Harbhajan Singh 24-9-59-2.
India second innings Iqbal Siddiqui not out 05 Deep Dasgupta not out 00 Total (for no wicket) 05 Bowling : Matthew Hoggard 0.2-0-5-0.
