Rohit Sharma's eleventh Test hundred, which enjoyed an element of fortune, was instrumental in helping India go from 33/3 to 326/5 on Day 1 of the third Test against England at Rajkot on Thursday.
In terms of difficulty, the India captain's 131 (196b, 14x4, 3x6) was perhaps nowhere close to his 161 at Chennai that came on a turner in February 2021 or the sage-like 127 at The Oval against the moving Dukes ball in September 2021both knocks against England. But heading a batting line-up which has three frontline batters with a combined experience of seven Tests, it was just as vital. The team required some shepherding, and that is something which he and Ravindra Jadeja's unbeaten 110 did with style.
It was halfway through the day's play, with Rohit and Jadeja starting to unfurl the shots, that England's bowling was made to feel how so many visiting teams have felt in India. The Rohit-Jadeja stand became India's biggest partnership of the series when they went past 90 runs itself-the previous best was Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shreyas Iyer adding 90 at Visakhapatnam.
If the series, before Thursday, gave a feeling of India playing catch-up cricket, it's because their secret sauce - big runs on the board was missing. The second session of play where England failed to uproot Rohit-Jadeja was the first in this series that India did not lose a wicket.
A cat-and-mouse game
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