A spectacular leg-side stumping by Dinesh Kartik off the very first delivery of the fifth day gave the Indians a shot in the arm. The man making his way back to the pavilion as a result was the first-innings centurion Younis Khan.

Anil Kumble, who got that wicket, did not look back. The man kept coming hard at the Pakistani batsmen, who had little or not answers to the varied questions posed by him on a wearing fifth-day wicket. Inzamam played on to dislodge a bail and in the very next over, Taufiq Umar nicked Balaji to Sehwag in the slips. Three wickets in the first hour of play derailed Pakistan's chase, if they had any plans on that count, and reduced them to playing for a draw, which was never going to be a cakewalk on a crumbling track against two of the world's best spin bowlers, backed by a chirpy band of close-in fielders and a huge Sunday crowd.

Youhana was the first to fall after lunch, being caught bat-pad off Kumble seconds after being told by Kaif that whether he batted in a helmet or cap (he had discarded his helmet for a cap), he would get out very soon. Youhana smiled in response, but soon fulfilled his opponent's prediction! Kamal, a batsman who has impressed one and all on this trip with his compact batsmanship and ability to keep cool in a crisis, played some elegant strokes and watched Razzaq and Kamran Akmal being bowled by Kumble and Harbhajan respectively. Razzaq couldnot make much off a Kumble special that was probably as quick as the delivery that Sami bowled to hit Laxman on the forehead the previous day. The leg-stump had gone by the time Razzaq brought his bat down. Akmal's scalp was Harbhajan's first of the innings. Kumble had already taken five in the innings by then. Ganguly, who got them to change ends at critical junctures and bringing on Balaji to bowl the odd over, handled his bowlers and fielders effectively. If the idea was to not allow the batsmen to get used to a particular line of attack from one end and not get too predictable, it was a brilliant ploy.

Kamal's dismissal after a defiant innings shortly before tea was the final nail in the coffin. Sami fell to the first ball to the last session and a few overs later, Harbhajan got one to sneak past Kaneria's defence to complete India's first Test win over the old enemy at the Eden Gardens. The hero of the innings was undoubtedly Kumble, who finished with 7-63 and a haul of ten wickets in the match, the seventh time he has done so in Test cricket. His tally of Test wickets now stands at 460.

When asked to nominate the best batsmen in the world a few years ago, Shane Warne had said that first there was Tendulkar, then daylight, and then the others. One can extend the same analogy for Anil Kumble. With all due respects to the men who have spun India to many a Test victory in the years gone by, if one sets out to pick the top five Indian spinners, first there is Kumble, then there is daylight, and then there are the others.

The Man of the Match award went to the self-effacing Rahul Dravid, who confessed after getting the key of the motorcycle offered as a prize that he did not know how to ride one! What he does know is that whenever he walks out to bat in a Test match, particularly in a tense situation, the expectations of an entire nation are riding on his shoulders, and time and again, he has fulfilled them. His 110 in the first innings took India to a position from which they would struggle to lose the game; his 135 in the second laid the foundation for a historic win. Of the 20 Test hundreds that he has scored, 19 have been either match-saving or match-winning ones.

They don't make many better cricketers than him and Kumble anymore. They will be eager to take India to another win in the third Test, starting on Wednesday in their hometown Bangalore, as, one suspects, will the entire team.