A century is a sacred thing. Everybody understands its significance, its pull. When Sachin Tendulkar was touring the world with 99 of them in his pocket, all anyone wanted to talk about was that next one, which would've been fine except he was trying not to think about it. It became awkward every time he went down to breakfast and they were giving him his tea with a side of knowing looks.
The hundred is the most recognisable feature of our sport, to the extent that others have found reason to tap into it to generate that sweet, sweet engagement. Premier League champions Manchester City marked the occasion of their star striker, Erling Haaland, scoring 100 goals by putting a picture of him in full cricket gear on their socials.
India just finished a Test match that flew in the face of all that. In Kanpur, Yashasvi Jaiswal not only had the chance to bring up three figures but do so quicker than anybody else from his country. He could've walked it in singles. Bangladesh had spread the field all the way out. Instead, he saw a little gap at third and went for the ramp shot. Now, there weren't a lot of reasons for him to be in such a hurry. The one he had, though, was extremely compelling.
"When we gathered inside [the dressing room] for a small huddle, Rohit Sharma mentioned that we are going to go hammer and tongs and try and make, you know, 400 runs, probably, in 50 overs," R Ashwin said after India found a way to win a five-day game in half that time. It involved a lot of risk. It wasn't going to happen without a collective buy-in, especially from the batters, particularly the out-of-form ones.
KL Rahul came into this series with an average of 34.08. He has only one century at home, a casualty of overarching plans to make the most of spin-friendly conditions. He might have liked to bed in at Green Park. The pitch wasn't doing very much and time at the crease is a magical thing. It can erase all the doubt that had ever been cast on you, not from the outside, but also on the inside. It just settles you.
Under a less adventurous captain, with a less willing group of men, facing a better quality of opposition and no pressure of World Test Championship points, India would've got in a bit of batting practice and left with a draw.
"Rohit walked out and just tonked the first ball for a six," Ashwin said. "So when you walk the talk, I think obviously the dressing room doesn't have any other choice but to follow that same pattern. We had 50 runs out of three overs. There was no looking back after that."
Rahul made 68 off 43. He had two boundaries within the first ten balls and he was charging and reverse sweeping by the 15th.
India have had many captains that have transformed the way they play. Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi yanked them out of defeatism. Kapil Dev won them their first world title. MS Dhoni ended the wait for another one. Sourav Ganguly made being bad look sexy. Rahul Dravid broke the ODI chasing curse. Anil Kumble stood up right against wrong. Virat Kohli triggered a fast-bowling revolution. Rohit might just be outdoing them all because he is cutting right into one of the core values of Indian cricket.
Sanjay Manjrekar on India's impressive win in Kanpur
Batting means scoring big. You're almost excused if you get out for a duck but if you get a start and then throw it away, you're less than nothing. Rohit actually comes from the one place in India where this is basically gospel. He is Mumbai khadoos, which means come rain or shine, famine or plague, if you have a bat in hand, you have a responsibility not to get out. You are obliged to score those grand, daddy hundreds that utterly break the oppositions and make them question why they ever woke up that morning. His three double-tons in 50-over cricket are a tribute to this method and its far-reaching consequences. His next best score caused a bit of a flutter too.
Rohit made 171 in Perth during a series where India faced questions about whether they cared more for milestones than victories, because their batters kept slowing down and it did have an impact on the final scoreline. Back then, the team was heavily reliant on its top order and so they had to play with a great deal of caution. It is only with time and effort and investment and experience that they now have a batting line-up with threats all the way down.
In 2023, Rohit wanted to maximise that, weaponise that. So a man who used to set up to bat the full 50 overs went into a home World Cup and showed a very different side of himself. He kept hitting from ball one because he thought that was the best way for India to win. By then, he'd found strong influences that backed his beliefs.
"When Rahul Dravid was here," Ashwin said, "he used to mention you will not remember the runs and the wickets that you take but you will definitely remember the memories that you create."
That's so old school, right? Especially in 2024 where athletes have discovered they aren't just people, they're brands. There is incentive to putting themselves first; to safeguarding their success and minimising their risks. The power of a simple individual - let alone those with global acclaim - is sky high right now. It isn't ludicrous for them to want to cash in, or at the very least have questions when their captain says things like "we're gonna score 400 in 50 overs". No one did in Kanpur. Even though the same social-media phenomenon that makes them walking bags of money opens them up to incredible rebuke whenever they fail. And this had potential for failure.
Green Park is by no means a template. India will not be scoring at nine runs an over when they go to Australia. But even so, for Rohit to convince his men to follow him like that, in merely the hope of a result, and for them to do it, is no small thing. It's been a hallmark of his captaincy, across formats. He helped Kohli reassess the price he puts on his wicket in T20s. He protected Jaiswal, genuinely worried he might jinx the opener during his coming-of-age performances against England. In that same series, when Sarfaraz Khan finally broke into the national team, Rohit spent an entire training session looking after him. He has been rewiring his own generation and encouraging the next one to put the win above all else.
Five numbers from India's carnage on day four versus Bangladesh
In Kanpur, it meant playing fast-forward cricket, the kind that didn't just put pressure on the opposition, it caught them completely by surprise. Bangladesh admitted to needing a couple of overs to realise what was happening on that fourth afternoon when India, having batted for less than three hours, had enough on the board for a first-innings lead. Then they came out with similar intent to chase a target of 95, Jaiswal helping himself to another better-than-a-run-a-ball fifty.
"It's just the way he plays," Ashwin said. "In the past, I know of players who have got a fifty in a game like that, they might have just walked out 52 not out. He chose to go for the gallery shot. It is just in his head to see the ball and hit it.
"It's probably the next generation of players and they are going to be like that. It's us that need to be able to adapt to their style and be able to facilitate them with the best environment for them to be nurtured for them to prosper."
There are much sterner challenges ahead - the Border-Gavaskar Trophy starts in November and then there's the Champions Trophy in February and, very likely, the WTC final in July. Each of them will require India to dig deep in various ways. They may come up short. It can happen. But they won't die wondering. If there's a chance - even the slightest, most outlandish one - they'll grab it and they'll run with it. Rohit won't let them settle for anything less.