Kapil’s team-mates were furious. Many told reporters on that tour that the knock left a sizeable bruise on Kapil’s shin — in fact, anybody who saw him double up with pain at that point would have figured that. But he did not retaliate. India did complain that Wessels hit Kapil deliberately, but made no big deal of it. BCCI was afraid of a diplomatic incident and played it down. There was a routine hearing by the match referee, Clive Lloyd, who claimed he had seen nothing and that the TV replays were inconclusive. But he fined Wessels half his match fees anyway.

More important, however, is Kapil’s conduct. The same Kapil who, for two generations of Indians, has represented the aggressive, no-nonsense, never-say-die face of Indian cricket. He took both the insult and the injury with a stoicism not expected of an international cricketer, least of all if he answers to the name Kapil Dev. In so many ways, that incident set the tone of that tour as South Africa beat us in both forms of the game, bullying and glaring.

I have never got a satisfactory answer from Kapil on why he responded so uncharacteristically meekly. In fact, Imran Khan once said to me — on the record — that he was shocked by Kapil’s pusillanimity and, God forbid, if Wessels had him, or a Pakistani in his team, there would have been hell to pay. Particularly for a nation still fighting its way out of the anti-apartheid boycott. The question we need to ask is, would a Wessels have dared to do such a thing today? And if he had, not to one of India’s great stars, or its captain, but even to one of its junior team members, would he have got away the same way? The answer is an obvious no. And that is what has changed in world cricket. Which is why, apparently, when told to f..k off twice by Andrew Symonds, Harbhajan did not offer the other cheek, or mutter an apology and back off.

... contd.