NEW DELHI: Spin maestro Anil Kumble, renowned for his stellar cricketing career both on the international stage and in the IPL, reminisced about his time when he joined the Royal Challengers Bengaluru under former owner Vijay Mallya in the 2008 auction.

During the inaugural IPL auction, Kumble was not initially listed as an icon player but went under the hammer later. Interestingly, Rahul Dravid, the batting stalwart and current head coach of Team India, was listed as one of RCB's icon players, preceding Kumble, affectionately known as 'Jumbo' during his playing days.

Kumble, who shares the prestigious record for claiming all ten wickets in a single Test innings with England's Jim Laker and New Zealand's Ejaz Patel, was acquired by RCB at his base price. Mallya emphatically declared during the auction that "nobody" was to bid on him, asserting, "he's my Bangalore boy."

"Yeah I mean it was one of those things where I was the captain of India in the Test and for some reason I was not a part of the icon list so I was a part of the auction. Which I obviously didn't participate in but my name was in the auction list. I remember somebody telling me that as soon as my name came up it is not how it is like now when my name came up Mr Vijay Mallya just stood up and said he's my Bangalore boy. Nobody is touching him and that was the end of any other bid coming. I think that was the base price that I was bought at and there was no auction dynamics that you see today. So that was what I was told there were no because the owner just stood up and said no way, no way he is going anywhere else other than Bangalore," Kumble said during a heart-to-heart chat with Ravichandran Ashwin on the latter's YouTube channel.
Throughout his three-year tenure with RCB, Kumble participated in 42 matches for the Bengaluru franchise, securing 45 wickets with an average of 23.51 and an economy rate of 6.58.

For the majority of his career, Kumble primarily excelled in Test and ODI formats, with T20Is emerging later in his cricketing journey.

On the challenges he faced in changing his approach from the longest format of cricket to the shortest format, ahead of the inaugural IPL season, Kumble recalled, "For me, it was quite a challenge to get my mind around to bowl just four overs because the time that I started playing I needed four overs to warm up. The body required that kind of overs to bowl 55 to 60 overs in a Test match on an average and to come back to think that if you end up bowling 60 overs you would be done with the tournament. It was not easy for me to change that mindset. But it became very evident that the best way to approach my four overs would be try and choose the most challenging ones. That's how you probably get more into the game rather than just thinking that bowl four overs, end your spell and then wait for the batters to do their job."

In the second season of the cash-rich domestic league, the RCB made it to the final but fell at the final hurdle against the Deccan Chargers, a Hyderabad-based franchise that no longer features in the IPL.

(With ANI inputs)