Maharaj the man for this season of South Africa's journey

Maybe Keshav Maharaj is unlucky he didn't make his Test debut on South Africa's tour to India in November 2015. Or maybe not.

The pitches turned square, sometimes too square. The surface for the first Test in Mohali was a revelation, and not in a good way for the visitors. Worse awaited in the second match of the rubber in Nagpur, where even the ICC - who don't easily take issue with paymasters India - damned the pitch as poor. And that was an understatement.

Maharaj, who played his first Test the next November in the thoroughly spin unfriendly environment of the Waca, might have revelled in the conditions in India a year earlier. But he would likely not have made a big enough difference to stop South Africa from being beaten 3-0. Indeed he took only six wickets at 85.66 in the 127 overs he bowled in two matches of the series in India in October 2019.

Now Maharaj is back for another bite at India's cherry in a series of two matches that starts at the Eden Gardens on Friday. He returns as South Africa's premier spinner and behind only Noman Ali and Nathan Lyon among slow bowlers in the rankings. Jasprit Bumrah is at the top of the list, but Kuldeep Yadav and Ravindra Jadeja are two and six places below Maharaj.

It's rare that a team like South Africa should go to a place like India harbouring, theoretically, a greater spin threat than the home side. It's rarer still that South Africa are successful there. They last won a Test in India in, ironically enough, Nagpur in February 2010. Since then they have lost seven and drawn one. They used to be better - of their first 10 Tests in India, they won four and lost as many. In series terms they have won one in India - in February and March 2000 - lost four and drawn two.

Maharaj told a press conference on Tuesday that that record was ripe for rewriting: "There's a real hunger and desire within the camp to beat India and India. It's one of the toughest tours, if not the toughest tour, in the calendar. It's a wonderful opportunity to grade ourselves, to see how far we've come. Slowly but surely we've started to conquer other parts of the subcontinent, and this is one assignment we really want to take."

South Africa have played 22 series in Asia, winning eight and losing nine. They didn't lose any of the six rubbers they played in Pakistan, Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka from October 2007 to July 2014. Then came the fateful 2015 series in India.

Their squad this time includes Simon Harmer and Senuran Muthusamy. Between them, Maharaj, Harmer, Muthusamy and Prenelan Subrayen took 35 of the 39 wickets that fell to bowlers in the two Tests South Africa played in Pakistan last month. The home side won the first match, at the Gaddafi, on a pitch that would have given the 2015 Nagpur surface a run for its dodgy money. South Africa levelled matters on a more reasonable pitch in Rawalpindi, despite losing the toss and batting last.

Did that mean the spinners had earned the right to set the agenda in the bowlers' meetings in India? "No, the spinners do the least talking; regardless of the conditions," Maharaj said.

Did the South Africans expect surfaces similar to what they found in India's northern neighbours? "I don't think it will be as spin-friendly as we experienced in Pakistan. I think they will be good pitches that deteriorate as the game goes on. So probably more traditional Test pitches."

Maharaj said he based that view on what had happened in West Indies' Tests in Ahmedabad and Delhi last month. Spinners still ruled, taking 35 wickets. Even so, the quicks were in the mix with 18. India won by an innings and 140 runs and by seven wickets, but the Delhi match snuck into a fifth day by 17.2 overs.

The average length of a completed innings in the series was 83.4 overs. During South Africa's 2015 rubber it was 72.2 overs. In their 2019 series - when they failed to dismiss India once in the three matches - it was 78.4.

India were approaching peak R Ashwin in 2015. He was the leading wicket-taker in the series with 31 at 11.12; his lowest average in all 41 of the rubbers in which he played. He took 62 wickets that year, more than any other bowler that year. Only in 2016, when he claimed 72, did he have a more successful 12 months.

The Indians have moved on. Now their star bowler is Bumrah, who will have a supporting cast of Mohammed Siraj and Akash Deep - purveyors of fine pace. Jadeja and Yadav are excellent spinners, but it would be stupid to prepare pitches that blunt the fast bowlers. And we know the Indians are not stupid.

"They're a wonderful team and they've come a long way, especially with the transition they have made," Maharaj said.

They have. So have South Africa. Not only do they bristle with quality spinners, they also have batters who have found ways to score runs in Asia. Only 24 of their players have made centuries there, but five of them are in the current crop. And Tony de Zorzi, Aiden Markram, Wiaan Mulder, Tristan Stubbs and Kyle Verreynne are all in this squad, albeit only Markram has played Tests in India.

The 2015 series - Virat Kohli's first at home as India's captain - was a watershed, in different ways, for both teams. Ten years on, another could be about to unfold.