It was in 1969, when right-hand Australian batsman Ian Chappell first faced Indian spin bowler Erapalli Prasanna. That ball would mark a "lifelong quest" to beat Prasanna to his game. Some years later, on getting to know his Indian counterpart better, Chappell teased him saying, "You little b*****d. You've got a string tied to that ball and just as I'm about to get to the pitch of the delivery, you tug on the string."

This is just one of many vignettes on India's humdinger of a spin attack in cricket buff Anindya Dutta's new book, Wizards: The Story of Indian Spin Bowling (Westland, Sports). "Of all the bowling arts, high-quality spin is the most difficult to master. To a batsman facing a top-notch spinner, it can almost feel like magic when the ball does something completely different from what he expects," shares Dutta, of why a great batsman like Chappell was threatened.