At the halfway stage, on a pitch that wasn't completely straightforward to bat on, Virat Kohli was 51 not out. Considering he was playing two games in one that was pretty good going.
As soon as the coin fell against them, India had to play both the ball in front of them - which in the first innings was holding up on the surface - and the ball that lay in wait - when dew in the second innings would make run-scoring a much more appealing occupation.
A one in a million event - losing 20 tosses in a row - set the stage for a one in a million player. Kohli made his 53rd ODI century. South Africa haven't been able to keep up with him. But someone else was.
At the halfway stage, on a pitch that wasn't completely straightforward to bat on, Ruturaj Gaikwad was 51 not out as well. When the ODI squad for this South Africa series was announced, it seemed like he would be more of a bench player. The back-up if one of the openers got injured. Except, on training day in Ranchi, he batted with Kohli. Shadowed him, almost. On match day, it became clear that India saw him in a different role. Eighty-one of his 88 List A innings may have come at the top of the order but here this team saw him as a No. 4. Or maybe, somewhere way out in the future, a No. 3.
It is only one innings - played in Shreyas Iyer's absence who will very likely get his spot back once he recovers from his injury - but right the way through, it mirrored one of the greatest of all time. Gaikwad being in such good sync with Kohli actually became vital to his health because there were a couple of blistering on drives that came straight at him and would've taken him out if he were even a step off.
The two of them accessed similar areas in the field to further the same agenda. India needed regular, risk-free runs through the middle overs so that the wickets they ended up saving could help them launch at the back end (which they did, scoring 200 runs in 25 overs). Kohli directed it all. When the two of them got together in between overs, he kept pointing to the field in front of the wicket and gesturing "tap and run".
"Well, obviously a dream to bat with him and, you know, have a wonderful partnership," Gaikwad told the broadcaster in between innings. "He helped me a lot throughout [our time in] the middle about how to access gaps, what lengths the bowler might be bowling and how you can adjust your technique and score some runs by taking less dot balls. So definitely very helpful and good learning for me."
Gaikwad followed suit so well that when they brought up their fifties, their underlying stats were almost identical: 24 singles and three twos for the master vs 23 singles and three twos for the protégé accessing areas in front of the wicket because the pitch was two-paced and searching for runs behind square was too risky.
"I think we kept thinking about five-five overs," Gaikwad said about how they broke their 195-run partnership. "We had set small targets and we just thought that five overs we have to achieve this, five overs we have to achieve this. Once we felt that we were really comfortable in the middle and there came a phase where the ball wasn't doing much and it was coming really nicely onto the bat. And I just said that I'll back my instincts, whatever it is, and let's see how it goes on."
Gaikwad went from fifty to hundred in 25 balls. His boundary count nearly tripled, from five to 14. The moment came after a tiny bit of teasing. Deep midwicket tracked a pull shot placed past mid-on. Sixty-thousand people went "oooohhh" as the ball skipped across the outfield. Gaikwad himself couldn't take his eyes off the ball even though he was in the middle of running between the wickets. When it hit the rope, all that tension melted away. The crowd went up in a roar. So did Gaikwad. Kohli stood back, letting his junior enjoy his moment, and when he was ready, the two of them embraced.
All round the country - when Kohli landed in Mumbai, when he trained in Ranchi, when he batted in Raipur - people have been begging him for some attention. It was kinda funny that the one time he was instigating the PDA, he ended up having to wait. A first ODI hundred is always special but one made in the company of the king, matching him shot for shot, must feel even better.