“Now I am focusing more on line and length,” said Munaf recently. “I enjoy bowling more in right areas and that is getting me wickets so I will stick to it. Pace is not an issue for me.”

To some degree, it evokes pity. “Now he’s become a clever bowler and concentrates on line and length, but I’d like to see him bowl quick sometimes,” says former India wicketkeeper Kiran More, whose academy Munaf attended in his formative years. “I’d like to see the raw, young Munaf who wanted to bowl quick. I’d like to see him bowling those yorkers again.”

But Munaf 2.0 is an extremely effective performer in his own right, and has become, thanks to his recent displays against New Zealand and South Africa, India’s second automatic pace pick in the 50-over game behind Zaheer Khan.

Like McGrath, Munaf approaches the crease at a stately trot, cocks his wrist under his chin as he moves adjacent to the umpire and skips economically into an upright delivery position. Like the Australian, Munaf delivers from extremely close to the stumps, and smiles only if Hawk-Eye tells him that his previous ball was on course to hit the top of off-stump.

The similarities, though, end there. Where McGrath’s arm was vertical, Munaf’s comes down from around eleven o’ clock. As a result, his stock delivery angles away from the right-hander.

“If you have a slightly round-arm action, the natural tendency is for the arm to come across the body and angle the ball away,” says TA Sekhar, who smoothed out the rough edges in Munaf’s bowling at the MRF Pace Foundation in Chennai.

This angle multiplies the potency of Munaf’s off-cutter, coaxing batsmen to reach away from the body, creating a gate for the ball to duck into. In keeping with his reticent personality, this in-ducker doesn’t break back massively. But it does enough. “Because he bowls so straight, and from so close to the stumps, the ball has to come in only about a centimetre,” says Mukesh Narula, who coaches Baroda, Munaf’s Ranji Trophy team.

In recent months, this delivery has made a palpable impact on the international stage. Munaf dismissed New Zealand’s Kane Williamson twice in the ODI series last December, bowling him at Jaipur and rapping him on the back pad in front of off-stump at Vadodara.

In the second ODI against South Africa at Johannesburg, in which he turned in a Man of the Match performance, Munaf had Hashim Amla caught off the inside edge with one that came back a hint and bounced unexpectedly.

“He gets an odd sort of bounce,” says Sekhar. “From the outside it may look like he’s just putting the ball on a spot, but he actually hits the deck quite hard.”

Along with wickets, Munaf in recent months has brought control to a sometimes expensive pace pack, and has become the first-choice first-change bowler. “His main strength is that he doesn’t give width, and creates pressure,” says Sekhar. “If your first few overs go for runs, Munaf can come in and curtail the batsmen and take wickets.”

“I think he bowls well with the semi-new ball, and has a lot of experience now,” says More. “With his height, he also gets bounce, and bowls a good slower one.”

A couple of faint question marks still hang over his bowling, of course. His record against left-handers isn’t the best, and he has displayed, in the past, a tendency to suffer a drop in confidence when attacked early in his spell.

Munaf’s unwavering line and length can also work against him sometimes, when good batsmen line him up on a flat wicket. He hasn’t displayed any real initiative to go around the wicket or vary the angle of his delivery by occasionally jumping wide of the crease to catch batsmen off-guard. But to be fair to him, he hasn’t really needed to in recent matches.

But Munaf’s ability to think on his feet might be called upon very soon. At some stage of the World Cup, someone is likely to come hard at him, jump down the track, or try to disrupt his line with a switch-hit or two. Whether he can hold his nerve in such situations remains to be seen.

But this much is clear — an in-form Munaf would add a great deal of stability to India’s bowling. And his off-cutter — a genuine cutting edge.

Munaf Patel-a cutting edge

India vs Pakistan, 2nd Test, Kolkata, 2007: Pakistan are 78/3 on the final day, chasing an improbable 345. Misbah-ul-Haq, a centurion in the first innings, moves forward comfortably to defend a length ball from Munaf pitching a fraction outside off stump. The ball cuts in, with zip off the track. Misbah is late on the stroke, and is bowled through the gate.

Rajasthan Royals vs Delhi Daredevils, Bloemfontein, IPL 2009: Munaf Patel has already removed Gautam Gambhir with a one-handed return catch. His partner Virender Sehwag is next to go. The ball pitches just short of a length outside off, Sehwag shapes to punch him off the backfoot, and is trapped in front by an in-dipper that keeps a tad low.

India vs New Zealand, Vadodara, 2010: Zaheer Khan is moving the ball all over the place, and the New Zealand batsmen seem clueless. Twice, the left-armer has close shouts turned down with balls that straighten at the right hander from leg stump. On comes Munaf to demonstrate that it’s much easier for a right arm over-the-wicket bowler to get LBW decisions against right-handers, bringing one back into Kane Williamson and catching him flush on the back pad, plumb in front.