It was a kind of headline that catches Indian eyes. First there was a mention of the word Tendulkar. ‘Teenage prodigy knocks over Tendulkar for a duck’. There was a whisper of a 19-year-old, who had worked out Sachin Tendulkar in the domestic circuit and bowled him out for his first ever duck in domestic first-class cricket.

Bhuvneshwar Kumar, born in Meerut, the manufacturing home of the SG ball, shot into the limelight when he debuted on Christmas Day in 2012, making the white Kookaburra zip all around the Pakistani bats at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru. A demonstration of nagging swing bowling in the shortest format of the game in batting-friendly conditions was a fine way to make the world sit up and take notice of this precocious talent.