One of those instances in cricketing time that will, years from now, become part of lore and legend. A moment that will, in future histories of the game, be referred to when developments in the game are being discussed and analysed.
It occured when Fanie De Villiers was bowling to Sachin Tendulkar. The first ball was fast, on the off stump. Tendulkar defensive. Ball two was equally fast, but a shade outside off stump and leaving the batsman. Tendulkar moved into line and pushed it defensively to Jonty Rhodes at point. The third ball was bowled with an identical action, but from very close to the stumps - and on a middle stump line. To such deliveries, Tendulkar has a stock response - he leans well forward, bat in front of the pad and with a wristy flick (or alternately, the scoop from under) either despatches the ball to the square leg fence, or over midwicket, for four.
This time, Tendulkar leaned forward as usual - but for once, the wrist stayed locked, the bat stayed in position. The batsman waited for the ball, then played a deft jab at it, placing it just to the left of midwicket and racing through for a run. As he passed the bowler on his follow through, he was seen, on television, looking at Fanie and saying something with a smile that, in turn, provoked a laugh from the tall RSA quick.
The little byplay was explained later by De Villiers himself. ``That was my slower ball,'' Fanie said after the game. ``Twice in the last four innings, I got Sachin playing at it early, and popping up catches to close in mid wicket. This time Sachin was ready for it, he just pushed at it and as he ran, just looked at me with a smile and said, 'Not today, Fanie!'. I laughed, because it was a trap and he had evaded it.''
Cricket, at its best, is a battle of wits between batsmen and bowlers - with the dice heavily weighted in favour of the batsmen. The front foot no ball rule, the turning down of LBW appeals when the ball is pitching outside line of leg, irrespective of point of impact, the calling of bouncers going above a batsman's shoulders as a wide, the field restrictions within the first 15 overs, the limitations to the number of fielders you can place on the leg side - all these, and such other regulations, are intended to ensure that the game is dominated by batsmen. Legacy, perhaps, of the perception that crowds come to see fours and sixes, not wickets tumbling.
But the more rules the game's governing body makes, the more ways bowlers discover of getting their own back. And this is what, in recent times, makes watching cricket so fascinating - this war of attrition between batsmen who have the backing of the game's law-makers, and bowlers who have just their wits, and their abilities to innovate, for weapons.
And it is the fast bowlers who are leading the way in this battle. Gone are the days when they bowled to three slips, a gully, a point and used sheer pace to try and crash through today, a typical field might revolve around a very close midwicket, for the ball angled in and bowled with a change of pace to induce the early stroke and consequent outer edge. Time was when a bowler of Allan Donald's pace would take the new ball, relying on its shine and hardness to help him bowl faster. Today, he not only comes in first change, to use the ball after some shine has gone off, but gets most of his wickets bowling at the very end, with a ball 40-plus overs old, using guile rather than pace to strike.
And with this change in perception has come a change in the basic fast bowler's armoury. Forget the inswinger, the outswinger, the off and leg cutter, the bouncer, the beamer and such. Today, the buzzwords are reverse swing, curve-ball, the fastball, the - heaven help us - knuckleball...
What exactly are the fast bowlers up to these days?
What follows is not an exhaustive list, for there are as many innovations as there are bowlers. We attempt, here, merely to look at a selection of new weapons in the quick bowler's armoury, in order to help you enjoy the onfield action better, and to get a better insight into what is actually happening when a Younis, or a Donald, runs in to bowl these days.
Reverse Swing: This particular delivery, delivered from a shade wide of the crease, holding a line on off stump, drifting a shade out and then at the very last instant swinging in viciously, is already something of a legend thanks to the Younis-Akram combine.
And at its heart is a basic aerodynamic principle. What the Pakistan quicks - and the likes of Darren Gough, who have been quick to catch on to the secret - have been doing is basically simple. Keep one side of the ball scuffed, as the swing bowler used to do. But rather than shine the other side of the ball, use spit and sweat to make the opposite side slick, wet and relatively heavier than the scuffed side. By which point, aerodynamics takes over, the heavier side begins to 'fall away', that is, perceptibly slow down as opposed to the lighter side. With the result that at the very late stage, the ball moves dramatically in towards the batsman, swinging away from its natural line and taking the batsman by surprise. Delivered at a full length, the late swing defeats both the defensive jab and the drive, both strokes dictated by the off stump line, and crashes more often than not into the middle and leg stumps.
The curveball: A Pakistan special, this - which brings up a tangential point. Isn't it interesting that some of the greatest innovations in pace bowling are coming from Pakistan, where the wickets are if possible deader than in India?
In India, the local fast bowler on a batsman's track tends to just give up. In print he laments the unavailability of fast wickets on which to practise and ply his trade, and just goes through the motions. In Pakistan, however, the bowlers - beginning with Sarfaraz Nawaz, and continuing through Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Aaqib Jaaved, and now Mohammad Akram have preferred to find new weapons. No coincidence, perhaps, that with the wickets proving lifeless, the Pak bowlers have started using techiniques that use the flight of the ball, rather than movement off the wicket, to gain most of their successes.
Back to the curveball - which, in its aspect, resembles the baseball pitch where the pitcher aims into the batter's body, the ball shooting in fast, curving with the natural movement of the pitcher's arm and dipping a shade just at the very last moment.
Imagine batting to this one. You pick the length, realise it is a full toss. Pick the line, on off and middle stump. Draw away a shade to hit it through extra cover, or move into line to swing over midwicket. Get your bat horizontal - and then discover, at the very last moment, that the ball is dipping, that your bat is on a higher line, and watch in dismay as the ball crashes below it and on to the stumps.
Waqar and Wasim have been reluctant to reveal how precisely they bowl this ball. But Richie Benaud and Ian Chappell, two Australian Test captains turned commentators, are unanimous that the inspiration comes from baseball. ``Waqar's fast dipping full toss is basically the in-curver in baseball,'' Benaud explains. And it is bowled with index finger on the seam, second finger next to it and close, the bowler bowling from very close to the stumps, his shoulder falling away at the point of delivery so that the line is essentially an arc, beginning from off stump, curving away outside off and then straightening again towards the second half of its flight - the curve coming from the shoulder dip and the locked arm and wrist at point of delivery.
The Fadeaway: Fast bowlers invariably grip the ball with the tips of their fingers and thumb. Even a decade ago, an aspiring quick whose fingers didn't have the strength to hold, and propel, the ball with fingertips and who preferred to tuck the ball in so that one part of it rested on the palm would earn admonitions from the coach - the thinking being that a fingertip grip meant the ball would be released fast and smooth, while a more full grip would 'check' the ball, slowing its release.
Times change. Today, the smart quick breaks every rule in the book, and gets a good number of wickets with the fadeaway ask Venkatesh Prasad, or Allan Donald.
Basically, what the bowler is doing is deliberately holding it seam sideways, rather than up. The seam gets bite on the wicket and ensures the ball shoots through fast and bouncy with this delivery, however, the quick bowler deliberately keeps the seam away from the deck, and uses the fuller grip to slow the ball out of the hand. The result - a ball that leaves the hand slower than normal and, after pitching, slows down even further.
Prasad, Donald and other exponents of the arc use the crease to make the delivery even more unplayable. Essentially, they bowl from just wide, so that the ball is bowled from outside off and angled in to off and middle. What this line does is force the batsman to play at it. Item two, they keep it on a driving length, or just short - which instigates the batsman, especially in the shorter game, to go into the drive. The stroke is played, the bat is on the fall through, and then the ball arrives - passing through with no impediment from the bat, to either earn the LBW, or crash into the stumps.
The Knuckleball: Funnily enough, this particular innovation came not from the Pakistanis, the S'Africans or even from Venkatesh Prasad (who alone among Indian quicks is evolving a fast bowler's lexicon of his own) but from the little rated Adam Hollioake of Surrey and England.
Remember his wicket taking bursts against India in the second and third ODIs for the Texaco Trophy during India's tour earlier this summer? For a large part of that success, thank the knuckleball.
``Basically,'' says Hollioake, ``the knuckleball is my version of the slower ball, and I have a lot of variations for it. I hold the ball between my index and little fingers, with the other fingers tucked under the ball. Then I flick it out with the tucked up fingers providing the propulsion. The ball hovers in the air, instead of going forward at even pace, and it also bounces more than usual. When I get it in the slot to drive, batsmen tend to go for it and end up being deceived, and hitting the ball to mid off or, off the leading edge, giving the catch to mid on or midwicket.''
Besides these deliveries, the quicks have also begun borrowing heavily from the spinner's armoury, bowling the off spinner and, heaven help us, even the flipper on occasion. While McGrath, De Villiers and Donald, among the bowlers on view during the ongoing Titan Cup, have taken to bowling fast off-breaks regularly to confuse batsmen, Prasad again ranks as the most regular practitioner of this type of delivery.
All of which prompted the inimitable Geoffrey Boycott to come up with this, during one of his commentary stints: ``If Prasad could now develop a quicker delivery, he would be a world class spin bowler!''
Like I said before, the above is not a definitive list of innovations the quicks are coming up with. And part of the fun of watching cricket, these days, is trying to spot these innovations, figuring out what the bowlers are actually up to.
Try it sometime - it's great fun... and adds a dimension to your cricket-watching.