Kumble celebrated his 32nd birthday on Thursday with another expert spell of leg-spin but he said silencing his distractors was not part of his duty.

This was the 20th time Kumble had taken five or more wickets in a test innings, and his overall haul now stands at 345 dismissals.

"I'm not there to answer the critics, but I feel that I can still deliver with the ball," an elated Kumble said.

Kumble was dropped from the team for the second Test during the Indian tour of West Indies in April, when Sourav Ganguly's men lost the series.

His medium slow leg-spin bowling was said to have lost its bite.

Back on the team for the next test match, he had his jaw fractured by a Merv Dillon bouncer.

But that did not stop the gritty Kumble from coming on to bowl with a bandaged jaw and dismiss star batsman Brian Lara.

And he really showed he was back on song when bowling India to an innings victory against England in Leeds in August.

Kumble said there was still a lot of cricket left in him, and Thursday's performance was a reminder of his ability.

"I will keep playing so long as I feel I pose a threat to batsmen," he said.

"My job's to go out there and take wickets. I will know when I'm no longer capable of doing so, and then I will let people know."

Kumble said he did not face any pressure from the lean spells that punctuated his match-winning performances.

Opinion

"Having played cricket at this level for so many years, I know that you've got to take things as they come. People will talk and write different things, that's their opinion."

The highlight of the first day for Kumble was his dismissal of the highly-experienced middle-order batsman Shivnarine Chanderpaul.

"Obviously it was special to get Chanderpaul out. He has scored heavily against us so many times," he said.

"Parthiv Patel took a brilliant catch to dismiss Chanderpaul as there was quite a bit of extra bounce in that delivery."