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ANIL KUMBLE seemed both triumphant and bashful as he held up the cricket ball at the WACA in Perth, acknowledging the applause. The 600-wicket milestone was clearly approaching at a good clip for India’s greatest bowler.

When it came, the leg-break’ taking Andrew Symonds’s leading edge, bounding off wicket-keeper Mahindra Singh Dhoni’s gloves, and into the waiting hands of state-mate Rahul Dravid, there was joy all around. That it has come in a match where India is doing very well indeed would make the personal triumph all the sweeter. But then, this is familiar territory. The man is a match-winner, if nothing else.

Kumble’s last 200 wickets have come in his last 40 Tests, and that is a tribute to the man’s well known tenacity, his athleticism, and a skill that is still improperly understood. Anyone who has fancied his chances against Kumble, under mistaken assumptions about what leg-break bowling, or indeed any bowling, is all, about, has had to bite the dust.

As Anil himself put it, it is simply about creating doubt in the batsmen’s mind. And Anil is a master there - he harnesses whatever turn and bounce are available to him on the wicket, and plugs away at the batsmen, nagging at him till the mistake is made.

In 41 Indian triumphs, including the one featuring that memorable 10-wicket haul against Pakistan at the Ferozeshah Kotla in New Delhi, Kumble has taken 279 wickets at a superb average of a little over 18 runs. He has reached the 600-wicket mark quicker than fellow leggie Shane Warne, taking two Tests less in which to do it.

Only the Australian, and Sri Lankan off-spinner Muthiah Muralitharan are ahead of him, both in the 700 club. Considering the way he is going, Jumbo may well make it there as well. Whether he does or not, he is sure to win matches for India along the way.

We all know the threat posed by the declining sex ratio, with boys far exceeding girls. But statistics never express the full horror of a systematic elimination of girl children in the womb or soon after the birth. One major reason is the age-old fixation for a male heir.

It is made worse by a purely economic factor. In a male dominated society, a girl child is considered a drain on the family finances. Child labour is officially banned but it is very much a harsh reality. A male child can add a few coins to the family till; a girl isn’t considered even that “useful”, although many of them are doing much more than what boys do for the household.

A welcome new scheme of the Ministry of Women and Child Development seeks to remedy the situation by offering to give over Rs 1 lakh to families that guarantee their girls grow up to be 18. Perhaps this move will give them a stake in the survival of the girl child and curb the incidence of female foeticide.

There is optimism that the pilot project to be started in 11 blocks of Punjab, Haryana, Bihar, Orissa and Jharkhand - five states which happen to have the most skewed sex ratio in the country - will be a success and can be expanded to the whole of India some day. That will be money well spent. The results have been very encouraging in countries like Brazil, Nicaragua, Columbia, Chile and Mexico.

Every effort must be made to ensure that this money, to be given on various occasions like birth, registration of the girl child, after every immunisation, every year till completion of elementary school, enrolment and till completion of secondary and higher secondary education and for remaining unmarried till the age of 18 years, does not fall a hostage to red-tapism. How the equally well-meaning “shagun“ scheme in Punjab was botched is still fresh in public memory.