It was a nippy December evening in Delhi in 2015 when the then chairman of selectors Sandeep Patil announced the name of an unheralded Barinder Sran in the squad for an ODI series in Australia.
"We felt the Indian One-day team was becoming predictable of late," Patil had claimed while justifying the decision. In the same meeting, Ashish Nehra was brought back into the frame after four years for the subsequent T20I series. Two months earlier, Sreenath Arvind was handed his only international cap in a T20I against South Africa.
The message was clear: the Indian team management was getting restless in the absence of a left-arm option in their attack. Both Sran and Arvind faded away as Nehra's services were limited to the T20 formats till he announced his retirement in October 2017.
Cut to September 2018 ahead of the Asia Cup. The discussion gathered steam with another bold selection in Khaleel Ahmed, who had no exposure in first-class cricket following his appearance in the U-19 World Cup in 2016.
This time, just ahead of Friday's selection meeting for the limited-overs home series against Australia, Jaydev Unadkat's name had been doing the rounds. He had already disappointed in a T20I tri-series in Sri Lanka earlier in the year before coming up with impressive spells in the Ranji Trophy. Speculation grew as if it was a compulsion for the selectors to have one left-arm pacer in the ranks. Instead, the MSK Prasad-led selection committee chose neither Khaleel nor Unadkat for the last international series before the World Cup.
The non-selection of a left-arm pacer has put a question mark on the role of this breed of bowlers for the moment. "The team management sometimes gets obsessed with the need to have a left-arm pacer. But if the left-arm pacer isn't good enough, then you can't take him for just the sake of it," Nehra told TOI.
"For example, (just because) Kuldeep and Chahal are doing well, you can't play just anyone who bowls wrist spin. Keep aside the period between 2003 and 2011 when Zaheer, Irfan Pathan, RP Singh and I played, India didn't play a left-arm pacer in World Cups. I remember Zaheer, Irfan and I played together in the XI in ODI match at Eden Gardens in 2005. It happened because we were better than others."
Since the 2015 World Cup, the Indian team management has been trying to groom left-arm pacers. There was talk of Nehra making it to the Champions Trophy in 2017 before breaking down in the preceding IPL. A left-arm pacer is needed in the nets to enable batsmen to cope with the likes of Trent Boult, Mitchell Starc and Mohammad Amir, but the board has already addressed the issue by roping in a specialist left-arm throwdown specialist in September.
For all the hype around the Indian team's dominance in the 50-over format since Virat Kohli assumed full-time captaincy, India have been generally looking around for a pacer to back up the consistency of Jasprit Bumrah and Bhuvneshwar Kumar.
Nehra said frequent chopping and changing has put the selectors in a dilemma over the fourth pacer. "Had Shami not come good in Australia and New Zealand, the selectors would have been worried about the third pacer, leave alone the fourth one. Khaleel is the only one who has got a decent run in ODIs ahead of the likes of Siraj, Sidharth Kaul, Umesh Yadav and Deepak Chahar. Now that both Khaleel and Umesh are not in the ODI squad, it means there is uncertainty."
Nehra feels the team management has to take a call between having experience and raw talent. "Umesh has the experience of bowling well in a World Cup. If he goes, India will retain the core of the 2015 World Cup and there will be Bumrah to boost. Khaleel is raw. He doesn't have the experience of first-class cricket. His pace has dropped but that happens to any young bowler. He will learn and get better," Nehra said.