In an age where Sachin Tendulkar is the unmistakable face of Indian cricket, Anil Kumble has been its soul. He labours virtually nine to five, trousers drawn well above his navel, and grinds out over after over of leaping, lashing legspin.

Forget all those images of swirling Indian wrists and flashing blades - victory in the sub-continent is necessarily about grim and grime.

Kumble entered the third Test against England at the China Swami stadium in Bangalore needing only one more wicket to reach 300 in Tests. Bangalore is the city where he was born, the place where he learned his cricket skills, and where one of the busiest road junctions is named after him.

No spinner of our times knows how to use his home conditions better than Kumble. Not Shane Warne, not Muttiah Muralitharan, both superior bowlers, but whose records in their own countries fall short of Kumble's 193 wickets in 33 Tests at a touch above 21, and at a strikingly un-spinner-like strike rate of 54.

The soil, the heat, the dust, the SG ball with its hard seam, the maniacal support of tens of thousands - he uses them all to best effect (particularly the soil).

How must England play him on a crumbling surface? Get forward, and he rears on to the splice or the glove; play back and he will slide on to you faster than John Travolta on grease.

His is spin bowling of an unfamiliar, unerring and unsettling variety. He operates mainly through the top-spinner and increasingly, the googly, but that is not his greatest strength. It is, as Steve Waugh said, that he "just keeps coming at you all the time".

Kumble gives no respite because psychologically he is so strong. "I go into every game telling myself that I am the guy who has to win this game for the team," he explains.

The motivation came from an early age. "When I was young, and it was time for practice and I found it drizzling near my house, I would think maybe it is not raining at the ground, since it is four kilometres away, and I would go there."

He is not like any other legspinner in India's history save his mentor, the mystical, free-wristed Bhagwat Chandrasekhar who lives in the same part of Bangalore as Kumble.

Kumble first met Chandra at an under-15 camp, shortly after his elder brother, Dinesh, had talked him into switching to spin from medium-pace. "The first thing that he told me, and tells me even now, is not to worry too much about the spin but work on my strengths - the accuracy and the bounce that I get."

He is different from his fellow leg-spinners in other ways. He is not boisterous or experimental. Kumble will not be caught leaving lewd text messages as Warne has been. Or spliffing marijuana in the Caribbean, as Mushtaq Ahmed once was. On the field, his glare could burn a hole into your skull, though off the field, he is thoughtful and articulate.

Kumble's career brings regrets. He is the greatest bowler of this Indian generation who is still not an all-time great. Not when statistics reveal that in 32 Tests he has played overseas, India have won only one (in Sri Lanka), and when his average overseas is just 40.

No matter. He has given India so much, won more Tests for them than anyone in their history, Tendulkar included. He has beaten Pakistan with 10 wickets in an innings, a special performance in a special contest.

Kumble is often called upon in Tests and in one-dayers, as stock bowler and shock, sometimes as night-watchman, and occasionally - remarkably for a man said to field like "one on stilts" - as gully-catcher.

And he is still chugging on. Still taking six and seven wickets an innings, bravely bouncing back from shoulder surgeries, never shirking.

And now, one away from 300 Test wickets, he is tugging at our shirts to remind us that his has been an unforgettable contribution. As Warne said of him after he took all 10: "It couldn't have happened to a nicer bloke."

Rahul Bhattacharya is a staff writer at Wisden Asia Cricket