The tiny hole in the boy's left ear - still visible today - was gone. A panicked search confirmed his judgement: the boy had been swapped with the son of a fisherwoman. Gavaskar, from a proud, wealthy Brahmin family, the highest caste in the Hindu social order, had an uncle, Madhav Mantri, who played for India. It's one of the great imponderables, a classic recasting of the nature-nurture divide to speculate whether Gavaskar, raised by a fisherwoman, could have played the game.

He might have had the eye and the dexterity to star in backstreet games, but would a fisherwoman's son have played 125 Tests and scored 34 centuries? The chances may not have been great. The Brahmin caste, which forms only a tiny fraction of India's population, has always dominated the national cricket side. Even today, with the game reaching further and further into the countryside, and the so-called lower orders, the Indian team has a decided flavour with Anil Kumble, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, R.P. Singh and Ishant Sharma all Brahmins. Wasim Jaffer is a Muslim, Harbhajan Singh a Sikh, while, of the Hindu players, only Mahendra Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh come from "lower" castes. But toss the question into still water and you might not hear a splash. Harsha Bhogle, the erudite Indian commentator heard on ABC radio and ESPN, was astounded to be asked about the role of caste in Indian cricket.

"I don't think that anyone in the Indian team would even be aware that X is from one caste and Z from another," he said, adding he had no idea what proportion of India's population were Brahmin. "I did not not even know that, it hasn't crossed my mind at all." Gavaskar, acutely aware of how his fate was saved, still makes light of the effect on his life. "I keep thinking about I was found in a crib next to a fisherwoman so it definitely has had an effect on my cricketing career - look at the number of times I've been out caught fishing outside the off stump."

But caste and cricket? No influence, at all, he says. Similarly, Ravi Shastri, a former Indian Test captain and now the chairman of the national cricket academy. The preponderance of Brahmin players, especially batsmen, "is just coincidence". He says: "It's got nothing to do with it, 'because they are Brahmins they are picked.' I think they're just being picked because they are Indians. The game is just popular among Indians, as simple as that. "It's just that you are good enough to play for your country, and that's why you are picked."

Bhogle admitted caste was still a key factor in Indian politics, where aspiring representatives search for guaranteed support. "Fewer and fewer people in the cities are thinking like that [about caste] and, left to ourselves, we wouldn't even think about it. But politicians won't allow us to forget because they've got to cater to their vote banks," he said. "But luckily there have been some areas that are completely free of all that, our entertainment industry is completely free of it and I'm very happy to say our cricket is completely free of all that."

Not all agree. Siriyavan Anand, a Dalit (the caste formerly called untouchables), has written provocatively and critically of the Brahmin domination, suggesting it was easy to "infer that cricket is a game that best suits Brahmanical tastes and bodies, and that there has been a preponderance of Brahman cricket players at the national level". Anand's argument that cricket is an idle and indolent game - at least when played by higher-caste Indians - is readily accepted by commentators and even Australian crowds, who know next to nothing of caste in India. "Why do their fielders not chase the ball to the boundary? Why do Indian batsmen rarely run for singles, apparently preferring to hit the ball to the fence or amble through for two runs in no obvious haste?" Anand wrote. "Having too many Brahmans means that you play the game a little too softly, and mostly for yourself."

The man rated India's best fieldsman, Eknath Solkar, is not a Brahmin, nor is Vinod Kambli, a precociously talented batsmen from a "lower" caste, who burst on the scene with Tendulkar when the pair made a world record partnership of 664 as schoolboys. He played the last of his 17 Tests in 1995, despite an average of 54.20 and a highest score of 227. Despite his talents, Kambli was always booed and mocked at his home ground, Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. Observers believed it was because of the dark colour of his skin. Not so, says Kambli. "I think it's because of my caste."

Siddhartha Vaidyanathan, assistant editor of cricinfo.com, believes caste is relevant within the Indian team at a subconscious level, "in terms of the groups that are formed, in terms of the people who feel wanted, in terms of the people who don't feel wanted". "It's also because people from the lower castes have this tendency to not feel wanted, people have to make an extra effort," he says. "But people from the top castes have a tendency to be stand-offish, so I think exaggerates it a bit more and the gap increases." Siddhartha can see caste as a possible explanation for the Brahmin dominance, particularly in batting. "Traditionally, cricket has been an elitist sport, and in terms of the physique and what you need as a batsman, it's more skill, wrist and angles than what you need as a fast bowler or fielder," he says. "That probably explains it in a way. If you look at the body structure of the higher castes, you would find they aren't as athletic as they are deft."

Cricket is also a game of long hours - both in preparation through many days in the junior ranks, to play and to watch - establishing an inherent bias towards those wealthy enough to indulge their passion. Twenty20 cricket may be about to change all that, with the find of the recent national competition being V. Devendran, who hails from the tribal regions of Tamil Nadu. Shastri believes more players from the regions will emerge.

"People from the outskirts of the metros are hungrier, they want it more than the city boys, who are distracted by too many things," he says. "You look at India, you look at Pakistan, you look at Sri Lanka - you will see more and more players coming from outside the main cities." Dhoni, who comes from that other world and who is already the most popular Indian cricketer among the younger generation, only a notch below Tendulkar, is another example of the change. "His popularity is more from his dashing play, but in an indirect way, a village boy watching Dhoni will look at him and say, 'If he can go on and do so well for India, I definitely can,' that caste is not a barrier in cricket," Siddhartha says. "This might open the tap."

SECOND TEST SIDE Castes among the Indian team's Hindus:

Brahmin

Anil Kumble

Rahul Dravid

VVS Laxman

Sachin Tendulkar

Sourav Ganguly

R.P. Singh

Ishant Sharma

Jat

Yuvraj Singh

Rajput

Mahendra Dhoni

Of the team's non-Hindus, Wasim Jaffer is a Muslim and Harbhajan Singh a Sikh.