A few people may have been surprised when I was included in the 1971 squad for England (It had been three-and-a-half years since I had left the Australian tour injured, and I had missed 19 Test matches). I was confident of doing well though the hiatus was preying on my mind. I was realistic enough to know that if I failed, my Test career would probably be over. I knew that the pitches in England would be to my liking and I bowled well in the initial county matches and carried that form into the opening Test at Lord's. I bowled well in the first innings for three wickets, though I felt that I became less of a threat as the match wore on. It was much the same in the Old Trafford Test in which I finished with none for 90 from 30 overs in the first innings and bowled only two overs in the second – fewer than what Sunil Gavaskar bowled.

Luckily, there were two county matches before the final Test and I picked up seven wickets against Nottinghamshire. Looking back, that probably allowed me to keep my place in the eleven.

My bowling in the first innings at The Oval was nothing special, though I did get the wickets of Basil D'Oliveira and Ray Illingworth. The second innings... well, that was just one of those days. I had never been a bowler who planned things. Most of the time, I bowled whatever I felt like, without giving much importance to the conditions or who I was bowling to. I always believed that if I bowled well, I could trouble most batsmen because I could extract extra bounce from a placid pitch and get some nip off it. That afternoon everything just fell into place.

When I was bowling well, I usually put my faith in a few key fielding positions. I needed a short-leg, a leg-slip, an orthodox slip and a midwicket – for the mistimed pull. That fourth morning I was on the spot right away. My first wicket, John Edrich, is one I remember with great fondness. One of the brilliant racehorses of that era was called Mill Reef and that was how some of the boys referred to my faster delivery. Dilip Sardesai, who was standing in the close-in cordon, called out to me as I turned to go back to my mark: "Ek Mill Reef dalo," he said. I had initially thought of bowling something else but halfway through my run-up I thought I might as well give it a try since he had asked. So I bowled the quicker one, and Edrich's bat was still in the air when the ball hit his middle stump.

Keith Fletcher, who came in next, was a very nervous starter, especially with the fielders crowding him. I slipped him a googly first ball and it flew off bat and pad to Eknath Solkar, who took a superb diving catch. D'Oliveira then came in, but he edged a faster one past slip to deny me the hat-trick.

Brian Luckhurst had batted really well through it all and he was playing my normal legspin deliveries with some ease. He was on 33 when I pushed one through a little faster. He leaned back to cut and the ball took the edge. [Srinivas] Venkataraghavan was standing at first slip and he threw himself to his right to take one of the best catches you will ever see. That brought in Illingworth.

I used to bowl my googlies and legspinners at quite a pace. But against him, I thought I'd give it some loop and hold it back a bit. Sure enough, he came onto the front foot and gave me a return catch. John Snow followed in almost identical fashion and I had five wickets for the innings.

But after three or four wicketless overs Ajit Wadekar took me off and gave the ball to Bishan [Bedi], who had Derek Underwood caught by Ashok Mankad, and England were nine down for 96. Then Ajit brought me back. I bowled a normal leg-break, almost yorker length, and it struck John Price on the toe, plumb in front of the wicket. And that was that... England all out for 101 and I had figures of 6 for 38.

The next afternoon, we won the Test. If I'm not wrong, it was Chaturthi day – someone had even brought an elephant to the ground. But it was only when we arrived back in India that we realised the enormity of our achievement. They took us from the airport to the Brabourne Stadium in open cars and some of those cheers still echo inside my head even today. It's hard to believe that 31 years have passed since that day... it could so easily have been yesterday.

BS Chandrasekhar spoke to Dileep Premachandran, assistant editor with Wisden Asia Cricket

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