The Ayatollah Khomenei was yet to become Iran’s supreme leader and Wasim Jaffer was still a toddler growing up in Mumbai’s Bandra East suburb the last time an Indian opening pair added more than 100 in England. Back then, in September 1979, Sunil Gavaskar played perhaps his greatest innings, 221 at The Oval as India fell agonisingly short of a target of 437. Along the way, he added 213 for the first wicket with Chetan Chauhan, who was his partner in 36 Tests despite never scoring a century.

England has rarely been a happy hunting ground for Indian openers, with even the best finding the swing and seam-friendly conditions not to their liking. Gavaskar took 13 centuries off the fearsome West Indians, but managed only two in England, and he passed 50 just once in his last two tours here.

The 147-run association between Jaffer and Dinesh Karthik at Trent Bridge has to be seen in the context of that history of underachievement. They started with a 153-run stand against South Africa in Cape Town and this was their third century partnership in just five Tests – and they were paired together only because Virender Sehwag’s game unravelled so spectacularly.

Despite boasting one of the game’s finest middle orders over the past few seasons, India have rarely possessed a solid opening combination. The closest they got was the all-Delhi pairing of Sehwag and Aakash Chopra, who outdid Justin Langer and Matthew Hayden in Australia in 2003, only for Chopra to be discarded and forgotten as India sought to accommodate the more cavalier Yuvraj Singh in the XI.

Unlike Karthik, a wicketkeeper who has reinvented himself as a specialist batsman to get back into the side, Jaffer has always been an opener. He was recognised as a prodigious talent while playing for the Anjuman-e-Islam school, and his run-making feats quickly got him noticed by the Mumbai selectors.

In one particular school match, he played a rash stroke and was slapped by his brother. He responded with a quadruple hundred in the second innings, showing the signs of the steely focus that earned him a debut against the South Africans in 2000. A languid strokemaker who is especially fluent through the covers and midwicket, Jaffer is often accused by critics of being too laid-back. His teammates, though, would tell you otherwise, and many in Mumbai still talk of the day when he went out and made a century just hours after his mother had died.

He spent four years in the wilderness after the last tour of England, where his statuesque footwork was ruthlessly exploited by the likes of Matthew Hoggard. With Sehwag pushed up the order and a multitude of pretenders auditioning for the other slot, Jaffer bided his time in domestic cricket, piling on the runs and making sure that the selectors didn’t forget him.

His comeback was straight out of the Brothers Grimm repertoire – 81 and 100 against England at Nagpur last year – but since then his scoring pattern has been infuriatingly inconsistent. Like camels that fill up with gallons of water at an oasis and then go thirsty for days, Jaffer would make a big score and then do little of note for a few innings.

Then, just as patience was wearing thin, he would score heavily again. After Nagpur, he made 212 against West Indies at St John’s and two fifties at Basseterre, before a drought that ended only with that 116 in Cape Town. The Bangladesh tour right after India’s World Cup debacle best summed up the Jekyll-and-Hyde nature of his batting, with a pair in Chittagong followed by a superb century in Dhaka.

The 22-year-old Karthik has almost as interesting a story. A while ago, influenced by a numerologist and whatever else, he went through more name changes than Prince. Having started off as KKD Karthik, he went to KD Karthik and then Dinesh Kaarthick before finally settling on the current version.

But after an outrageously acrobatic stumping to dismiss Michael Vaughan at Lord’s on his one-day debut three years ago, his career didn’t take flight and once the spelling shenanigans became old hat, he was yesterday’s news in a country quick to embrace the flamboyant Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Karthik is tougher than he looks. Even in backyard games as a child, his father peppered him with bouncers in an effort to ensure that the son didn’t run shy of the short ball like so many of his compatriots.

Later, after winning a place in the Tamil Nadu Ranji Trophy team, it took him just two seasons to take the step up, making his debut in a thrilling Indian victory against Australia on a Mumbai dustbowl.

But though he scored a fine 93 and shared in a crucial partnership with Rahul Dravid in an Indian victory over Pakistan at Kolkata’s Eden Gardens, his inability to make big runs saw him replaced by Dhoni after just 10 Tests.

Like the baby-faced Parthiv Patel before him, it seemed as though Karthik had taken on too much too soon.

His domestic form suffered too, and it was only when Greg Chappell spotted his strokemaking ability at a camp that he made his way back into the national fold. He credits Chappell with improving his mental toughness, and that was certainly in evidence at Cape Town when the team management asked him to open the innings with Jaffer. There was no century, but his 63 and Sehwag’s inability to buy a run meant that it was Karthik and Jaffer that went to Bangladesh in May as the first-choice opening combination.

By the time he scored his maiden century at Dhaka, there was a new face to watch him and cheer from the stands. Days before the team left for Bangladesh, he married Nikita Vanjara. Given that few Indian cricketers have shown an inclination to settle down till their late 20s – Sachin Tendulkar was an exception – it raised a few eyebrows.

It’s far too early to speak of India having found a solution to their opening blight, but there were encouraging signs in the manner in which Jaffer and Karthik rotated the strike and picked off the loose balls while ticking along at more than three an over. Back in 2003, Sehwag and Chopra managed two century stands in Australia, the foundation that allowed the middle order to construct a run edifice that transformed Steve Waugh’s final Test into a leather hunt. By doing what they did on Saturday, Karthik and Jaffer may just have sparked a renaissance of sorts in Dravid and Tendulkar, neither of whom had done their reputations any justice at Lord’s.