It would be appropriate to say that Bob Woolmer, coach of the South African cricket team when they last played a Test match at Kanpur's Green Park in December 1996, was the only member of the touring party to have enjoyed his stay in Kanpur. It was not very far from the Test match ground that he had been born half a century previously!

For the rest of the team, Kanpur was a nightmare. They arrived in the city on a high, having beaten the home team in the second Test of the 1996-97 series in Kolkata by the monumental margin of 329 runs. All the pressure on the eve of the series decider was clearly on the Indians, who had won the first Test at Ahmedabad.

The euphoria in the South African camp turned to despair when they glimpsed the plot of land on which the battle was to be waged in Kanpur. The pitch was brown and dusty, and they could imagine the Indian spinners licking their fingers in anticipation of an imminent feast. But the tourists put their best foot forward and started positively, bowling out India for 237 with left-arm spinner Paul Adams taking 6-55. But what Adams alone could do, Kumble, off-spinner Aashish Kapoor and left-arm spinner Sunil Joshi could do better. The South Africans were bowled out for 177 in their first innings and Mohammed Azharuddin scored a classy 163 in the second innings. A target of 461 was always going to be beyond a team on a deteriorating fourth and fifth-day wicket, and the South Africans duly lost the Test by 280 runs, and with it, the series. India's spinners had done it once again for their team, although the pacemen Srinath and Prasad were nor far behind with six and two wickets respectively.

India's success on a square turner in the final Test against the Aussies at Mumbai, coupled with the failure of the home team on a greenish pitch at Nagpur, indicates that the South Africans of 2004-05 will be confronted at Kanpur with a strip not too different from the one on which they played in 1996-97. It is time Indians stopped imitating some overseas cricket analysts who crib about spin-oriented Indian pitches and insist that India will not improve as a cricket team unless it makes its wickets more 'sporting'. What does the term 'sporting' stand for? Who laid down the hard-and-fast rule that a 'sporting' wicket is one that does not turn on the first couple of days? Turning tracks not only encourage the spinners, cricket's most cerebral exponents, but also inspire the best of batsmen to put their heads down and utilize their technique and cricketing intelligence to the optimum.

A tussle between a quality spin bowler and a competent batsman makes for fascinating viewing.

It will be stupid on India's part to make pitches that do not suit its strengths. There is no harm in doing what every other country does. As for the claim made by many observers from overseas that a proliferation of turning tracks 'prevents the Indian batsmen from growing as batsmen and thus performing overseas', one does not remember coming across a major transformation in Indian pitches in the last two years. Yet, the Indian team has done incredibly well, that too with the bat, on foreign soil in the past two years!

Given that the wicket will in all likelihood be a turner, India should play three spinners. Kumble and Harbhajan are too good to be dropped and Karthik can't and shouldn't be touched after his performance against the world's best team at Mumbai. This means that Tendulkar will share the new ball with the resurgent Zaheer Khan, although that isn't mandatory when one considers that the spinners opened the bowling at Mumbai. There is bound to be the odd whisper about having a more 'balanced' attack, but one of the fundamental rules of cricket is to play to one's strengths. India's strength is spin, and they should not tamper with it, unless of course, the groundstaff at Kanpur take a cue from their Nagour counterparts.

The South Africans should look to be positive and assertive. A tentative approach against the spinners will be like going fishing in the Bermuda Triangle. The Indian batsmen, most of whom didn't cover themselves in glory against the Australians, will be tested severely by the South African quickies Pollock and Ntini. Dravid, Sehwag and Ganguly are all due for big scores, but it will not be a cakewalk for them.

The Indians surely have the upper hand, but they will underestimate the South Africans only at their own peril. How many instances has cricket had of David slaying Goliath? Plenty.