So it happened. A despairing nation relaxed just a little as India finally had a good day in the field. It was no surprise that when it did come, it came on home soil, and with an SG ball. Indian cricket's destiny has not just been shaped just by men. The SG ball, with its prominent seam, has played the lead role in every series victory India have had in a decade and a half. India's spinners use it beautifully, and they had the warmest of homecomings today, reunited not just with their country, but with their cherry of choice.

If it seems cruel to ascribe so much success to a leather orb, consider that without it, India's spinners become impotent. Anil Kumble's average overseas is almost 40. A destroyer of the best batting line-ups at home, he is treated like a club trundler elsewhere. And Harbhajan Singh, who took 32 Aussie wickets with the SG, was greeted with contempt in Sri Lanka, where the conditions were identical but the ball was Kookaburra.

England play their cricket with the Duke's ball, which has a seam similar to the SG. Familiarity, however, does not necessarily lead to comfort, as England were skittled for 238 after looking good at 200 for 3. That's when Nasser Hussain fell, and the rest then found out what most visiting sides inevitably discover: an Indian spinner with an SG in his hands is an irresistible force with an eminently movable object.

Long-suffering Indian fans will no doubt be exulting at a good day in the field, which should lead to a win. But this team is really no better than it was a week ago, when it returned humiliated from South Africa. In the ideal conditions of South Africa, India's best pacemen - young and old - were so pedestrian that one could almost see the zebra crossings beneath their feet. All were discarded for this Test, held on India's only true greentop, and three promising newcomers made their debuts, salivating, surely, at the conditions they had to bowl in.

Close, but not even a cigarette. Tinu Yohannan was fast and got the ball to move, and Iqbal Siddiqui had his moments. (Sanjay Bangar bowled just five overs.) But all of them lacked control and consistency, taking a leaf from all who have come before them, ever since Kapil Dev retired. Three good balls would be followed by a wayward one and England, especially the outstanding Hussain, followed a simple policy of keeping out the good deliveries and punishing the bad ones. They took 124 runs off 34 overs of pace without running any risks at all.

If India never picked a bowler who was temperamentally unsound, they would have an all-spin attack. Why is this country unable to produce world-class pace bowlers? Theories have been ranged from the dietary to the genetic to the environmental, but the simple fact is that talent does exist in abundance in India. Zaheer Khan, Yohannan and Ajit Agarkar all cross 140 kph regularly, and at least half a dozen Indian pacemen can run through the best batting line-ups on their day. But that day hardly ever comes. The problem is clearly a temperamental one; and, scarily, it runs through Indian cricket.

Tonight, these matters will not occupy the Indian team, as well they shouldn't. They will sleep a good night's sleep, and if Harbhajan Singh clutches his sheets longingly, and runs his fingers over its creases, we'll all know exactly what it is that he is dreaming of.

Amit Varma is assistant editor of Wisden.com India.

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