As Warne departs, Murali remains an indefinable bowler, Kumble runs the last lap of a fine race and Harbhajan is delivered a little lesson from a great game, there are only two men left to showcase spin bowling. Neither is from the sub-continent. One, Daniel Vettori, lives in a country of such lush green grass that spin bowlers must feel alien. And the other now comes from a land where it was believed that spinners only emerged in end June. So where are the spinners from the sub-continent? Pakistan might point, with some justification, towards Danish Kaneria but there is little else.

It means that batsmen from the sub-continent will no longer be the great players of spin bowling they once were. I often ask people who see more domestic cricket than I do if they have spotted an exciting young spinner and get the answer before it is spoken. That is why I think Panesar could be as much of a threat to India as Hoggard and Harmison. You must wonder why I say so given that this team has three of the most thrilling players of spin bowling I have seen in Tendulkar, Laxman and Ganguly. But with each of them the past tense grows more significant on this issue.

The great threat of Shane Warne was negated by precise footwork; first from Tendulkar in Mumbai and Chennai, then by Sidhu and most artistically by Laxman. In 1998, Laxman used his feet beautifully to come to the pitch of the ball and drive through the on-side, even through mid-wicket sometimes. In 2001, he used the inside-out shot to the leg spinner better than anyone I have seen. But increasingly Laxman prefers to play from his crease as does Tendulkar. They push and glide rather that drive and loft and even Ganguly, the best destroyer of left arm spin I have seen, now only jumps out occasionally. If he is not attacked the spinner is free to bowl his length. It is when his length is questioned that the spinner is in strife.

... contd.