India, Sept. 2 -- There are spells that survive because of the bowler, and there are others that survive because of what they did to the opposition. Mohali in October 1999 belongs emphatically to the second category. India, batting at home with Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, and Sourav Ganguly in the side, were dismantled for 83. Five batters made ducks. The principal destroyer returned 6 for 27.

It was not even his first act of disruption against India. Four years earlier, he had dismissed Tendulkar for four in Bangalore. In New Zealand, he would remove him again after a century. At the 1999 World Cup, with India needing victory to keep their campaign alive, he bowled Tendulkar for 16 as New Zealand advanced and India went home.

The b...