Watching an Indian teenager peel a century from their four-pronged pace attack on a fiery WACA wicket in 1992, Australia's players knew they were witnessing the emergence of a batting giant.
Sixteen years later, having passed Brian Lara to reach the pinnacle of Test match runmaking, Sachin Tendulkar chose that difficult tour down under - India lost 4-0 - as the "turning point" of his brilliant career.
Despite the scoreline, the series is remembered most for Tendulkar's innings of 148 not out in Shane Warne's first Test at Sydney and 114 at Perth.
The second in particular is still talked about in hushed tones by all who witnessed it, for the sight of a subcontinental batsman flourishing on a WACA "flier" was about as inconceivable then as the iPod.
"The Australian tour in 1991-92 was extremely good for me," Tendulkar said.
"I had a good tour and scored a couple of hundreds, at Sydney and at Perth, on two different kinds of surfaces.
"It gave me immense confidence.
"I felt I could bat anywhere in the world and score runs - those knocks were probably the turning point of my career."
Former Australian captain Mark Taylor said Tendulkar's innings in Perth had confirmed that his was a truly rare talent.
"(After the hundred on a slow pitch in Sydney) we thought the extra pace and extra bounce would sort him out," Taylor told Cricinfo.
"You could expect an Indian player to make a century at the SCG where it's slower and lower, but at the WACA it takes a special player to pick up the bounce and pace of the wicket in such a short time and Sachin was able to do that.
"It proved that he was always going to be a player for the future."
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