India, March 1 -- When India won a Test series in England for the first time in 1971, six of the playing eleven were from Bombay. Their hegemony in Indian cricket went unchallenged till the late 1970s and 1980s when a cluster of players from north India began making their presence felt. The changing dynamics were apparent at the 1983 World Cup, when as many as five players in the team, including skipper Kapil Dev, were from the northern belt.

It was followed by a period in the 1990s when India's bowling attack featured three engineers from Bangalore - Javagal Srinath, Venkatesh Prasad and Anil Kumble. At around the same time, Rahul Dravid, another Bangalore boy, was beginning to establish himself as a vital cog in the batting unit.

As w...