Test cricket has been around for so long that there are some things you just can’t know. Did Bradman sleep with his bat next to his bed? Did WG floss after brushing her teeth? Did Imran take a course on the psychology of cornered tigers? Did the Nawab of Pataudi have morning breath?

The importance of a batsman hitting the first two balls he has for a six lies somewhere in there, as a quirk. History suggests, as far as possible, that there were four people who did this.

Foffie Williams is known, even if it happened in 1948, because he was a fast bowler and that was very out of character. The rest of these raiders are from more recent times and therefore data on them is much more readily available. Sachin Tendulkar took a liking to Nathan Lyon in 2013 and Umesh Yadav couldn’t resist George Linde in 2019. Each was a spontaneous attack.

“I don’t think they (Bangladesh) as a bowling unit expected this. But it was always part of our game plan to see, okay, how can we move this game forward? And how can we achieve the result?” said bowling coach Morne Morkel.

India need five wins to feel assured of their place in next year’s World Test Championship final. You have five tests at home. Packing them up before they leave for Australia would take a huge weight off their shoulders. But the weather in Kanpur and the drainage in Green Park were far from accommodating to these ideas. If India had dreamed of going Down Under and taking part in the Border-Gavaskar series completely liberated, they would have to do something drastic.

And they did. Even before they started hitting. With Rohit once again as the instigator.

Litton Das played some great shots on both sides of the wicket and took no chances. So India’s captain picked out two of his slips and placed them right in front of the batsman. One at short midwicket, the other at silly midoff. Now Litton couldn’t make his runs by playing those check drives where his hands were never too far from his body. Now he had to do something else. He had to expose himself to risks.

The one he took was to clear in the middle of the game. And Rohit was there. He jumped into the air. He stuck a hand skyward and came down with the ball and a smile that took up far more space than he had available, a deficiency that was remedied quickly enough when his teammates joined him. His smile spread to her, and her smile spread to the 20,000 or so people watching in the stadium. Shubman Gill recreated the catch during the celebrations. Rohit recreated it himself as he returned to the middle to fetch the new batsman. It was a fun moment that he allowed himself before getting back to work.

There was a moment when Shakib Al Hasan, fed up with what was happening, wanted to get his captain’s attention to suggest a change of field, but Najmul Hossain Shanto probably had too much on his mind to do it notice. In the end, Shakib simply gave up and had to wait until the end of the over to deliver his message.

While Bangladesh struggled, Jaiswal scored 72 runs off 51 balls. Virat Kohli delivered an innings in which his control percentage dipped into the mid-60s, but his strike rate rose into the high 130s thanks to his willingness to try such exotic shots as the standing reverse dab into the deep third. KL Rahul forgot to look like he was in an existential crisis every time he played this format and scored a 33-ball fifth. India took the lead within three hours.

“It was a collective buy-in from the batting group and that’s important,” Morkel said. “From a GG perspective too, we decided to see if we can move the game forward as quickly as possible and for that you need a leader at the top. And Rohit has done that so many times for India and again today. “Go with the first ball, hit six, you know, on a surface where you think the bounce might be up and down, you’re sure not quite sure how the new ball will play, just to make its mark this way…”

India reached 50 in 18 balls, 100 in 61 balls, 200 in 148 balls and 250 in 183 balls. Each one was a Test match record and a plan coming together. The vastness of our game (so much of it is unknown) and the strangeness of this game (so much of it has fallen by the wayside) collided when Rohit struck.