RESULT
21st Match (D/N), Dharamsala, October 22, 2023, ICC Cricket World Cup
He's watching the ball tracing a giant arc in the night sky.
And when it lands over the rope, past Mark Chapman who has slipped on the Dharamsala outfield, which is definitely not a great advert for it, he breaks into gleeful laughter.
He punches the bat. It's not his six. It's Ravindra Jadeja's. But he's the once celebrating.
Virat Kohli sometimes enters these stages where the game becomes a drug to him.
Everything else fades and only it exists.
It often happens when he knows he is the only one keeping India up. There's Mohali 2016. Still one of his best innings, not just in T20s, but across formats. There's Perth 2018. Probably his best Test knock on a seriously fast pitch against seriously fast bowling which was taking out his team-mates left right and centre. There's Birmingham 2018, where he finally laid the Anderson head-to-head to rest. And of course Melbourne 2022. That six against Haris Rauf.
In each of those games, his batting hits a peak when his team needs it the most. Here too, after he had a hand in the run-out of Suryakumar Yadav, giving NZ two wickets in 11 balls, he's barely made a mis-step.
Its the way he picks up length when in this state that's almost other-worldly. Quick to rock back. Dangerous when lunging forward. Its like his mind sharpens when he realises the contest is back on. Because until that run-out India were cruising. Then suddenly, they were wobbling and so he flicked on boss mode.
With five runs to win, and on 95, he goes for a six to get the record - 49 ODI centuries, alongside the great Sachin Tendulkar - but he doesn't get enough on the ball and is caught at deep midwicket. Glenn Phillips takes it and turns around to the crowd to shrug almost in apology.
India have five wins in five now. And they've managed to get Ravindra Jadeja some batting time. Everything is going to plan for 2023 to be 2011 again.