Rohan Gavaskar, son of legendary opening batsman Sunil Gavaskar, walked out to bat at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Stadium in Hyderabad on the final day of a three-day match against England last Saturday. He must have been hoping to thrash the English attack for a few quick runs and, to his credit, did manage to slam a few boundaries, not wasting any time at all in the middle.

At one point, Gavaskar stepped out and dismissed a well-tossed-up delivery from Martyn Ball over mid-off for four, almost in disdain. There were enough eyebrows raised all around about this 31-year-old off- spinner's ability to bowl against Indian batsmen, who are so good in using their feet. Even Ashley Giles' comment that the pitch was not too good for the bowlers did not hold any water as Murali Kartik and Sarandeep Singh had extracted a lot of life out of it.

Ball walked back slowly to his bowling mark, wondering what he could do on tracks such as these against quality batsmen. He trundled up to the crease, stopped for a slight moment and wheeled his arm over. Gavaskar's eyes lit up on seeing the flighted delivery, for it had enough loop on it to be smashed over the top. The ball, however, seemed to stop for a fraction of a second, dip sharply and adhere to the track. Gavaskar played the shot but was fooled and spooned an easy return catch to Ball. The unbound joy of the bowler and his mates were there to be seen; any spin bowler would be proud of such a dismissal, and Ball had effectively nudged the selectors.

No one really knew what this Martyn Ball did, and no one even gave a chance that he might play for England one day. Ball, who was born in Bristol, was almost living in cricketing oblivion, making his first- class debut for Gloucestershire in 1988. It says a lot about his initial years that he had to wait for his county cap till 1996. It was indeed a surprise for all, including the bowler concerned, when he was summoned up for the tour to India. England's number one off-spinner Robert Croft decided to stay back home, which facilitated Ball's entry into the squad. In his own words, "Crofty made that decision and gave myself and Dawson a chance."

Ball has been enjoying this new experience of bowling in India. He finds it interesting and a daunting challenge to bowl to Indian batsmen. Talking about his bowling in Hyderabad, which has afforded another option to the selectors, Ball says, "Your margin of error is small against these players on their own wicket. It was a matter of bowling my best ball, bit of loop, bit of dip, actually get the pace off the wicket rather than bowling quick." Precisely what he delivered to prise out the wicket of Gavaskar.

Ball is a quick learner too; there has been a lot of difference to his cricket in the last few years. One can see the pride in his eyes when he talks about the chance to wear the three lions on his cap. Ball had actually hoped to break into the English one-day team last year after a string of consistent performance in the domestic season. He has a confident air about him, which he calls, "football mentality." Although he is quite happy with his bowling, Ball is disappointed with his batting effort in Hyderabad, "In the first innings, I had done all the hard work to make 28. I should have gone on to make 50 or 60, but I played an attacking shot and gave a catch."

He has been a late developer as a cricketer. The sudden bend in his learning curve was due to the presence of a Kiwi coach in Gloucestershire, former New Zealand Test player John Bracewell. The former Kiwi off-spinner knows a thing or two about bowling at Indian batsmen and even bowling in India. In 1981 at Auckland, Bracewell rocked an Indian side that included names like Sunil Gavaskar and GR Viswanath to finish with match figures of 9/136. Seven years later at Mumbai, Bracewell helped his team achieve the near-impossible - a victory by 136 runs in India. He returned amazing figures of 17.1-3-51-6, which included scalps like Navjot Singh Sidhu, Dilip Vengsarkar, Mohammad Azharuddin and Kapil Dev.

When asked about the advice that he got from his county coach, Ball said, "He gave me quite a few, and I don't want to let it out, to let the Indian players know about it. John was been very good to me; he has been great for the last three or four years for English cricket." If Ball could do a Bracewell in any of the Test matches that he gets to play, England would have unearthed a reliable off-spinner with the right kind of attitude. Watch out for this Bristol Ball!

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