Rohit and Kohli take centre stage before receding to the background

He's given that look before. "Do bachchon ka baap", and Samaira and Ahaan would have prepared their father for Saturday, when Kuldeep Yadav saw something shiny - Lungi Ngidi's wicket - and wanted it even though he hadn't entirely earned it.

The ball seemed to be turning too much. To Rohit Sharma, it was just so obvious that for those moments India spent deliberating - which is a kind word - whether or not to review, he stared at Kuldeep like the left-arm wristspinner was one of his toddlers throwing a tantrum. "Kya? Pad par laga out hai?"

"Obviously, you know, in DRS, I'm someone who's very bad and he [Rohit] is someone who keeps pulling my leg all the time" Kuldeep told the host broadcaster between innings. "As a bowler, you feel like every not out is out so you have to have those people around you to just guide you, you know calm down, we only have two reviews."

The 2-0 loss in the Test series had the dressing room wired for this decider. India finally won a toss and KL Rahul was desperate to push home that advantage. He was very particular about which end Prasidh Krishna would bowl from - to take down Aiden Markram and Matthew Breetzke - and eager to have a word with everyone at the start of their spell, ironing out plans. His attention to detail with field placement was also pin-point. Once, he asked Virat Kohli to move to his left at long-on and Marco Jansen hit the next ball straight down that path.

But by that 43rd over, with South Africa 252 for 8, all the tension had dissipated. Rohit, in particular, was feeling gooooood. The leaner part of him had already been on show. He pulled off a sharp stop to prevent Dewald Brevis from getting a boundary at backward point. Kuldeep woke up the meaner part of him.

Rohit, from the 2023 World Cup to the 2025 Champions Trophy, was a violent presence at the top of India's batting line-up. Only 24% of the shots he attempted in the first ten overs were defensive. Since the Australia ODIs - by which point he had retired from every other form of cricket and was chasing the 2027 World Cup dream - he has been rather more sedate. Forty per cent of his shots in the first ten overs had become defensive.

Obviously, that requires context. Conditions in Perth, Adelaide and Sydney weren't easy and against South Africa, Yashasvi Jaiswal seemed comfortable taking those early risks so that the rest of the batting line-up could focus on and post dew-proof totals batting first. Rohit used to play like this a lot, back when he kept churning out daddy hundreds. Has he reverted to type given where his career is at and the goal he has set for himself?

In the two half-centuries he scored this week, Rohit caught up with the rate in the blink of an eye. He was dismissed for 75 off 73 in Visakhapatnam looking to go big when the required rate was less than five. That doesn't look like someone preoccupied with their own needs. Rohit left the field looking down at his bat, at the spot that caused the mis-hit, almost unaware of a crowd of over 27,000 applauding him off, who, about midway through, realised they needed to set a different vibe.

Kohli was walking in.

India had knocked off too much of the target for a hat-trick of centuries to be viable. But just like in 2018, when he was 29 and at his peak scoring 140, 157* and 107, this sequence of 135, 102 and 65* highlighted his problem-solving ability. His understanding of what shots to play and what not to - particularly in Raipur - when conditions weren't so straightforward to score quickly. His shepherding of his batting partners. His increasing comfort in hitting sixes whether he's set or not.

"I don't think I've played at this level for a good two-three years now and I feel really free in my mind and just the whole game is coming together nicely, [it's] very exciting to build on," Kohli said after collecting his Player-of-the-Series award.

Except now that India have won this series 2-1, both he and Rohit will disappear into the background. Focus will shift to the T20I team and their preparation for the World Cup. The coaching staff can breathe a sigh of relief. They don't have to answer questions about whether their two superstars can last the next two years playing as little as they do. It is to their credit they haven't stuck their fingers in their ears and gone la-la-la-la-la every time they have been asked to gaze into that crystal ball.

"They are world-class players in this format and their experience is really important in the dressing room," Gautam Gambhir said. "And they are doing what they do. They have been doing it for such a long time for Indian cricket. And hopefully they can continue doing the same, which is always going to be important, come the white-ball format and the 50-over format."

Six-hundred-odd days to 2027 is a long time. Too many things can happen - injury, dips in form. Some others need to happen. Kohli and Rohit will be playing domestic cricket again, at the Vijay Hazare Trophy starting January 3 to keep themselves in contention for the ODI side. Then there's the New Zealand series - again only three matches because we are in the T20 World Cup cycle - and then... and then... and on... and on... almost everything has to go right.

And it did here, with Rohit showing the time he still has against fast bowling, the ease with which he throttles up and down, the 360-plus ODI sixes and 20,000-plus international runs, and Kohli bossing all that he sees as soon as he steps up to the crease, including Saturday's chase. Real life made friends with fairy-tale logic this series.