There was a time when Indian fielders used to raze the ball into the ground so that the sphere lost its shine quickly and the spinners could be hastened into the attack.
There have been occasions when batting maestro Sunil Gavaskar opened the bowling with Eknath Solkar, who perhaps was picked more for his sensational close-in catching and determined batting than his left-arm seamers.
Those days from the early 70s now really seem from a different era considering that India went into the third Test at the Wanderers here with an all-seam attack.
ADVERTISEMENT
It is only the second occasion — the other being against Australia in Perth, 2012 — that India has entered a Test without a spinner. In Perth, Zaheer Khan, Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav and Vinay Kumar formed the pace pack at the WACA. Here India has gone in with an unprecedented — in its history — five pacemen including seam bowling all-rounder Hardik Pandya.
This marks a complete shift from the days of the legendary spin quartet. In R. Ashwin, India has one of the finest spinners in contemporary cricket and he did bowl admirably in the second Test.
But the brown, dry pitch at Centurion was very different from the grassy, lively surface here.
ADVERTISEMENT
Ashwin was part of the 13 picked by the team-management on Tuesday evening but eventually did not make the cut given the nature of the pitch, the cloud cover and the forecast for rain which meant the pitch would never really dry out for a spinner to exploit it.
India coach Ravi Shastri earlier said that conditions would determine the selection of the eleven.
And India opted for five pacemen and no spinner at the Wanderers.