This was a really chill day in Chennai. Literally - some people had come in wearing winter caps - and figuratively.
India were already 308 runs ahead. Bangladesh didn't exactly see the point of being active participants in this Test anymore. In a weird way, it made sense. This game was deep in declaration territory. Might as well preserve their bowlers for the next one. Or maybe they were worried about the over rate. In any case, under overcast skies, after early-morning rain, on a fast-bowling pitch (though there wasn't as much movement as earlier), Mehidy Hasan Miraz delivered twice as many overs as any of his team-mates in the morning session of day three. The spread-out fields added to the batters' sense of comfort. They were walking singles.
After a point, Rishabh Pant couldn't take it anymore. "Arre, idhar aayega ek," he cried out, beseeching Bangladesh to make a change. "Bhai. Ek idhar. One fielder here. Midwicket." He's been out of Test cricket for two years. He must have missed it a lot. Enough that on the third day of his comeback, he started playing not just for his team but the opposition as well.
A Pant century is never short of highlights and this one was no different. There were so many scoop shots, and a crowd that is used to the culture of repeat viewings - you need to schedule some soul searching if you're a Chennaite and you've watched a major movie just once - really appreciated that. There was also a straight six which he only managed by letting his bottom hand go off the bat. He played that once in the IPL three years ago, against Chennai Super Kings in Dubai, and Matthew Hayden on commentary dispelled the notion that the ball clearing the boundary was a fluke.
"He's nowhere near that. Now if he had two hands on his bat, that wouldn't have gone half-way to the boundary. But he actually gets the extension through his hands which carries the bat out in front of him, and therefore he gets the distance towards the short side of the ground, granted, but what a shot!"
Pant's scoops have the same counterintuitive quality about them. He is perfectly happy to stay in line with the ball. Other players - like Jos Buttler for example - make an effort to get outside of it because the biggest thing preventing them from accessing that gap at fine leg is their own body. Pant just bends his torso away at the last instant and clearly that's more than enough. He has an instinctive understanding of shot-making mechanics and that knowledge seems to be expanding.
When he made 39 on the first day of the Chepauk Test, and the conditions were considerably harder to bat in, Pant thrived by playing the ball with really soft hands. It is easy to forget - because of his inextricable association with all things outlandish (like making his name as a babysitter first, batter later) - that he has this skill too. At the Gabba in 2021, he was content with just one boundary off his first 48 balls. He had a reason to bat that way. A Test match was on the line. Here, there were no big-picture constraints. He was 30 off 65 because he was being thorough. It is possible he might be growing out of his impulse-driven strokeplay phase.
The fun that followed - Pant scored 19 off his first 39 balls against spin, then 64 off his last 48 - kept the crowd on their feet, and Shubman Gill on his toes. They had to celebrate a lot of boundaries and each time Pant seemed to insist on a routine. Two punches of the glove and, simultaneously, two taps of the bat. It resembled the secret handshake between Troy and Abed, from the hit series Community, and looked pretty cool but…
"I was telling him to not to [do that]," Gill said, "Because I'm playing with a bat that I played the England series [with]. My bat is quite old actually. And he was hitting my bat so hard, I was telling him you know, I'm trying to save my bat. And if he didn't middle it while in the middle, he would say no let's do it again. I was like, bro, calm down."
There's a chance that India have discovered a fun new partnership to follow with one of their old ones watching on with great interest. Rohit Sharma was sat in the dressing room, waiting for it. Virat Kohli had hit the nets at lunch, but he made sure to be back for it. Pant brought "it" with an effortless push to long-off. He only needed one more for his century. Gill thought he'd settle for that and soak in the moment. But Pant insisted on the second. Then he walked off to the side just a little. He must have had so many complicated feelings. Maybe his mind even went to that night on December 30, 2022. To come back from that, alive, is a lot to take in. To be good enough to play cricket again is a lot to take in. To score a hundred in his first Test back?
Those two or three seconds just before he raised his bat, when the reality of what he'd done set in on Pant, might be one of the only known stretches of time in which he has ever looked overwhelmed.