OVER to Ferozeshah Kotla on the third morning of the one-and only Test between Taylor's Australia and Tendulkar's India! Over, by the same token, to the third morning of the third Test between Lawry's Australia and Pataudi's India on November 30, 1969.

That was the day on which we saw India's burgeoning spin attack prepare the Kotla ground for as sensational a win as any in the landscape of our cricket. And India's spin troika, in that five-Test series (one fought out much more closely than the final 3-1 margin in favour of Australia suggested), was made up of Erapalli Prasanna, Bishan Singh Bedi and Srinivasan Venkatraghavan. Missing, for once, was the sleight-of-hand of Bhagwat Subramaniam Chandrasekhar.

It is the norm in our cricket to talk only of the way Chandra, in less than half a day, bowled out England (by his six for 38 feat on August 23, 1971). Yet The Oval win that followed, as a result, under Ajit Wadekar was, in truth, but the culmination of a spin process set in motion by Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi. A process that reached its apex on that third day of the NovemberDecember 1969 Kotla Test.

That third day saw the spin tandem of Prasanna and Bedi bowl out a strong Australian batting side for 107 to set the centre stage for a remarkable Test win under Pataudi. As Prasanna (24.2-10-425) and Bedi (23-11-37-5) cut through the Aussie batting like the thrust of a rapier, as India, needing 181 runs for a win, was 13 for the loss of Farokh Engineer's wicket at the end of a memorable third day, commentator Pearson Surita magically spotted the light at the end of the tunnel.

On what basis he did so, during the rest-day of that Kotla Test, remained a point of debate and dissent to the end. For the first three days of play, on that 'killer' Kotla pitch, had seen no fewer than 31 wickets fall, all but three of them to spinners. Indeed, Australia's Ashley Mallett had been so destruc- tive in the first innings (32.3-10-64-6) that there was reason for the Indian batsmen to fear the worst on the fourth day in the fourth innings.

Yet Pearson Surita, as soon as he came on the air on that fourth determinant morning, made bold to predict that ''the Indian batsmen have only to keep their heads and the runs (168 of them still) should come!''

They certainly did the exact way he foretold they would. Even after Ashok Mankad (our highest scorer in the first innings with 97) had been clean bowled by Mallett for 7, first thing in the morning, to make India 18 for two. This was the fortuitous moment Ajit Wadekar chose to fulfil, if fleetingly, Tiger Pataudi's assessment of him, in his book, as ''a batsman potentially in the world's top class.'' The English were later to talk of Wadekar's ''relaxed silkiness'' at the wicket. Some of that silkiness was in evidence now as Wadekar was all touch in racing to 91 not out, well backed by G. R. Visvananth (44 not out). In association with a Visvanath fresh from his maiden hundred (137) for India in the Kanpur Test, Wadekar steered India to a noteworthy seven-wicket win.

It was as satisfying a win for Pataudi, leading India in his 10th series in a row, as had been his October 1964 triumph, by two wickets, over Simpson's Australia at the Brabourne Stadium. That time Pataudi, after himself showing the way with 86 and 53 alongside Vijay Manjrekar (59 and 39), had exhibited the grace to concede that Chandu Borde (30 not out) batted superbly, making things look so easy in the end, where we, going in earlier, had merely grafted our way.'' Now, five years after that two-wicket win gained in a photo-finish, Pataudi did not need to come out to bat a second time, as Wadekar and Visvanath added 120 for the fourth wicket with a poise and panache that just took the game away from Lawry's Australia.

Lawry himself, by then the most unpopular captain to tour India, had batted right through the Australian second innings to finish with 49 not out, unable to strike out. Lawry's final series aggregate of 247 from 10 innings (thrice not out for an average of 35.28) saw the Australian captain perform in a purely defensive mould right through against Indian spin. For all the runs behind him before he came to India, not once in the series was Lawry able to shake off his shackles. If he made few runs, he made even fewer friends in India.

The man to come to impressive grips with the subtleties of Indian spin was Ian Chappell (the one you see on TV now). His 138 in that late-1969 Kotla Test rates, to this day, among the finest innings played against Indian spin in its high meridian. It was the way he had to tussle for that 138, even more than he had to for the 99 he hit in the Eden Gardens Test following that probably prompted Ian Chappell to hail Erapalli Prasanna as, ''for my money, the best off-spinner in the world.'' He did so, drawing in his book, 'Chappelli,' a pointed comparison with Lance Gibbs, the one destined to be the only spinner to figure in 'The 300 Test Wickets Club.' Aussie hopes at Kotla seemed to sink the moment Chappell fell, superbly taken in the leg-trap by Solkar off Bedi for a duck, as a follow-up to that 138.

I pinpoint the 1969 Kotla Test as the 'turning' point for Indian spin because, up to that stage in our cricket, any three from among Prasanna, Bedi, Venkat and Chandra had, together, won but critical acclaim, not a Test against one of the big three in the game _ Australia, England and the West Indies. That third Test at Kotla, therefore, is the one with which, if you look up the records creatively, our spin dominance in world cricket begins. And it begins, I repeat, under Tiger Pataudi. A Pataudi hailed in a public speech by Ashok Mankad recently as ''the best captain I ever played under.''

It is here well to remember that Ashok Mankad himself came to be rated by many of his Ranji and Duleep Trophy adversaries to be as good a captain as any they played against. And, as a Test batsman, it was under Pataudi that Ashok Mankad won his spurs. In that late-1969 series against Lawry's Australia, Ashok Mankad had scores of 74 and 8 in the Brabourne Stadium Test; then 64 and 68 in the Green Park Test. Now, in the 'core' Kotla Test of the series, it was the 97 this opener hit in the first innings that proved integral to India's getting as far as 223, just 73 runs away from Australia's 296.

''It was after this knock of 97,'' noted Ashok Mankad in that speech,'' that Pataudi at last came up to me. I had scored fairly in the series, but there had been, to my chagrin, not a word of appreciation forthcoming from Pataudi. Even now, as he walked up to me, there were no words of praise as such. Pataudi merely said: 'A man playing for India is expected to sport flannels, not cotton!'

''That,'' went on Ashok Mankad, ''was Pataudi's eloquently brief way of saying that I looked like making the Test grade, after all, with that 97 at Kotla. His captaincy fascinated me in the Tests in which I played under him. As a cricketer with a captain's mind myself, I was never just another fielder, there in the middle. I always thought of what move I, as a captain, would like to make next. And it amazed me to find that Pataudi had already 'anticipated' the move for which I was just set- tling! I say, in all honesty, that I have not encountered a cap- tain with a more finely honed mind.''

Ashok Mankad, let us always remember, was Vijay Merchant's personal pick as Chairman of Selectors. And that 1969 series at home against Lawry's Australia was the one in which Pataudi found himself under maximum pressure as captain. His own form with the bat was not too good. True, he had started the series with 95, after India had slumped to 42 for three in the first Test at the Brabourne Stadium. Conditions for batting were by no means easy on that first day, as Graham McKenzie and Alan Connolly swung the ball like a banana. But pace was something with which we expected Pataudi to cope, so that it was strange to see him stay put for over six hours to hit 95.

At some point, the spectators expected Pataudi to carry the war to Lawry and Co. But then Pataudi, in that series of five Tests, did not come into his own until the cameo 59 he hit in the final Test at Chepauk. Even this Test saw a fierce combat for supremacy, India losing it by 77 runs, as Pataudi, upon finding his best touch for that 59, had no one to stay with him. My short point is that, if Pataudi lost that series 1-3 to Lawry's Australia, he also looked like squaring it 2-2 any time during that Chepauk Test. In sum, this closely contested series, now lost, now won, did not deserve the censure of Pataudi being divested of the Indian captaincy.

For Tiger Pataudi in that series, totalling 220 runs from nine (completed innings), used the cutting edge of our spin most imaginatively as captain to run rings round Australian batsmen adept at using their feet. Batsmen of the proven calibre of Bill Lawry, Keith Stackpole, Ian Chappell, Doug Walters, Paul Sheahan and Ian Redpath found themselves tormented as never before in a game of cricket.

The 1969 Kotla win, therefore, must be interpreted as marking a spin watershed in our cricket. For, from that crunch point, it was anybody's series. ''I want to win just as badly as anyone else, within the written laws of cricket and the unwritten laws of sportsmanship,'' Pataudi, ironically, had written that very year (1969) in his book: 'Tiger's Tale.' ''A game isn't worth playing unless you are trying to win,'' Pataudi added. ''But, if having tried your utmost, you still lose, it is not the end of the world.''

But it was the end of Pataudi's initial 36 Test reign as captain of India. This after Pataudi had each one of India's spinners going for the gullet of each one of the Australian batsmen. He had Prasanna leading the way with series figures of 295-107-672- 26 (ave 25.84). He saw to it that Bedi's aristocratic left arm was right there with a return of 273.4-120432-21 (ave 20.57). And he had Venkatraghavan impressively bringing up the rear with a series analysis of 157.5-57-32012 (ave 26.66).

Pataudi's failure, if it could so be called, lay in the fact that he played the game with abiding dignity right through in the face of the unfailing churlishness displayed by Lawry. Looking to the manner in which Pataudi used Prasanna as a matchwinner that time prepared to let him buy his wickets even when India did not have the runs to play with, it is interesting to reflect upon whether Ian Chappell's handpicked off-spinner would ever have gone out of the team if Pataudi had remained our captain after 1969-70. But then Pataudi thought highly of Venkatraghavan too, the Venkat you see umpiring the Kotla Test right now! The Venkat who, in that 1969 Kotla Test I have discussed at such length, gave Prasanna his 100th wicket in Tests by being the one, effortlessly, to catch Paul Sheahan (15) in the leg-trap on the third day.

Pataudi's consummate skill as captain lay in the fact that he did not need the Oriental legerdemain of Chandra to run Lawry's Australia so close. Chandra had lost his place in the team after a foot injury to him impelled Pataudi to agree to his going back to India, early in 1968, during the tour of Australia. Pataudi here could perhaps only be faulted for insisting upon M. L. Jaisimha being the replacement for Chandra! But who shall question Pataudi's assessment even here, seeing that Jaisimha, stepping on to the middle almost from the plane, hit 74 and 101 in that third Test at Brisbane for Bill O'Reilly to demand indignantly, to know how such a natural performer had been left out in the first place.

Thus did it come about that Chandra had no role to play in the series at home against Bill Lawry and his men. But then Chandra was to signal that he was on the way back during that very tour of India by Australia! Returning to the spin fray for South Zone in the December 1969 match against the Australians on his native Bangalore strip, the 'India Rubber Man' dismissed Ian Chappell for 7; Doug Walters for 15; and Ian Redpath for 29 to underline India's spin 'reserve'! That South Zone-Australia match was the one in which Pataudi, too, showed signs of returning to top form with 23 and 29. As he played that game for South Zone under Jaisimha, Pataudi had a detached opportunity to study the return of the prodigal Chandra.

Would Pataudi have asked for Chandra to be back in the Indian team in 1970-71 itself, if he had not lost the captaincy! Whom, from our spin quartet, would Pataudi have kept out in that event? Certainly not Prasanna. For only to Wadekar could Prasanna be India's fourth spinner! To Pataudi, India's spin revolved around Prasanna.

The Prasanna whom Pataudi rediscovered for India in the January 1975 Chepauk Test. Prasanna's was the star turn (23-6-70-5 and 24-8-41-4) in India's winning that Chepauk Test by 100 runs from Lloyd's West Indies for the series to be squared 2-2 by Pataudi in an astounding turnabout. And Pataudi used Prasanna's spin tellingly in a team in which Chandra was back at his best under his leadership!

The 'even' man out, all over again, was Venkat. Leaving this white-coated gentleman, in 1996, to wonder whether Alvin Kallicharran did not have a point when he said: ''What, ma'an Venkat, how are you going to function? First bowl and appeal, then put on the coat and yourself declare the batsman out!''

Source: The Hindu