There’s No Way to Improve Upon Their Headline

If you think golfer David Duval’s recent 59 was impressive, you should have been in New Delhi last Sunday.

That’s where Anil Kumble took all 10 wickets in an inning against Pakistan, a feat accomplished by only one other bowler in 122 years of international cricket.

Kumble turned in the perfect 10 in India’s 212-run victory, in which he allowed Pakistan 74 runs.

That matched the feat of England’s Jim Laker against Australia in 1956, when Laker gave up only 53 runs.

The Asian Age newspaper said simply: “Words fail this headline.”

Trivia time: When was cricket first played in England?

Honest: A reporter to Don Larsen, who had just pitched a perfect game for the New York Yankees against the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1956 World Series: “Is that the best game you ever pitched?”

NBA rerun: Ron Rapoport in the Chicago Sun-Times: “Bison Dele--you remember him as Brian Williams--says the Detroit Pistons’ just-completed stretch of three games in three days is a throwback to an earlier era in the NBA.

“ ‘Maybe we should go back to big Afros and tight shorts,’ he said.”

Comedy club: Bernie Lincicome of the Chicago Tribune, on the “new” Bulls: “Anyone who has ever missed a layup, dribbled off his foot, thrown a pass to an empty space, had position and still been outrebounded, shot an airball, played defense like a parking meter, been dunked on, shot over, dribble-drove around, this is your team.”

Heavy stuff: Barry Horn in the Dallas Morning News: “At Tuesday’s one-team expansion draft, the Cleveland Browns’ brain trust was locked away in a ‘war room.’

“Which leads to the obvious question: Exactly who was the enemy? The entire draft should have taken no more than five minutes.”

FYI: Texas had the No. 1 football recruiting class of 1999, as judged by four magazines that specialize in recruiting.

UCLA was listed No. 4 by two magazines and No. 2 by another. USC received only a No. 10 ranking by one magazine. No other Pacific 10 school made the top 10.

Ouch! Willie Mtolo, the 1992 New York City Marathon winner, accidentally shot himself in the left ankle while patrolling his eastern South Africa ranch for cattle rustlers.

Trivia answer: According to the World Book encyclopedia, cricket was played as early as the 1300s and became a major sport there in the 1700s.

And finally: Juan Antonio Samaranch says he lives a simple life. Here’s a description of his home in Barcelona from Jenny Tonge of the London Observer:

“The place is stuffed with art. High art. Art that wouldn’t look out of place in the great Spanish cathedrals or in the royal palaces of his friend the king of Spain.

” . . . But the study is the epicenter of his ego--there are pictures of Samaranch with the pope, with the king of Spain, with Nancy and Ronald Reagan.”