The national selectors deliberated at length before deciding to opt for the 37-year-old Kumble ahead of ODI and Twenty20 skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni who was widely tipped to get the reins of the Test team as well.

The announcement was made by the BCCI Joint Secretary M P Pandove, just a few minutes before midnight and the Chairman of the Selection Committee Dilip Vengsarkar was not present to take queries from the media.

A top BCCI source said that the experienced Kumble was preferred ahead of Dhoni because the selectors felt that Test captaincy would put a lot of pressure on the Jharkhand youngster, who also has the responsibility of keeping wickets.

The selectors were put in a dilemma after Sachin Tendulkar, who was tipped to be the captain of the Test team, turned down the offer two days back and suggested that a "youngster" be given the reins of the side.

Anil Kumble has won the most number of Test Matches for India. Kumble's prodigious capacity to bear pain was proved in Antigua in 2002, when he bandaged his fractured jaw to deliver a stirring spell, and that to continuously learn when, in the mid-2000s, after a decade of middling away performances, he influenced memorable wins in Headingley, Adelaide, Multan and Kingston, using an improved googly, bigger sidespin and more variation in flight and on the crease.

In 1999 in Delhi he took all the ten wickets in an innings against Pakistan. In December 2001, on home turf in Bangalore, he became the India's first spinner to take 300 Test wickets.