Gambhir took to Twitter to extend his wishes and hailed Kumble as India’s greatest ever match-winner. The left-hander also called him the best captain he played under.
Gambhir tweeted: Birthday wishes to India’s greatest match winner @anilkumble1074! Have learnt so much from you and you are the best leader that I have played under! Thanks for inspiring generations of cricketers.
Kumble ended a stellar two-decade long international career as India’s leading wicket-taker in both Test and one day cricket. With a whooping 619 wickets under his kitty, Kumble ended as the third-highest wicket-taker in Test cricket behind Shane Warne (708) and Muttiah Muralitharan (800). He is best remembered for being only the second bowler after Jim Laker in Tests to pick up all ten wickets in an innings. The ace leg-spinner scalped 10/74 against arch rivals Pakistan at the Feroz Shah Kotla ground in Deli in 1999.
Kumble also holds the record for the most five wicket hauls (35) in Test for India. He was arguably the greatest match winner with the red cherry for India on home soil under the captaincy of Mohammad Azharuddin and Sourav Ganguly.
In June 2016, he was appointed as the head coach of the Indian men's team by BCCI for a period of one year, but resigned due to "untenable" differences with captain Virat Kohli.
Recently, he has been appointed as the director of cricket operations of Kings XI Punjab in the Indian Premier League (IPL). Kings XI will be the third IPL team Kumble will be involved with. He started out as a player -- and later captain -- with Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in 2008. He was then appointed as a mentor by the same team, before joining Mumbai Indians in a similar role in 2013.