Rahul rides his overdue luck to set India up with statement century

A total of 335 batters have had reprieves in Test cricket since 2020, which is when we started maintaining a log for such things. Ben Stokes has been missed 39 times, Marnus Labuschagne on 31 occasions, and Rishabh Pant has enjoyed 29 lives. This is catches and stumpings put together, of all kinds: regulation, tough, half-chances.

When Harry Brook dropped KL Rahul on 59 in the second innings at Headingley - a return gift of sorts after having been missed twice himself - it was only the eighth time in 23 Tests that Rahul had been given a life. Arguably nobody deserved a chance more than Rahul.

Bear with this repetition for a second. In terms of skill, Rahul has been the second-best batter of the Virat Kohli era, but it is inexplicable that he had averaged 33.57 coming into this Test, his 59th. Even allowing for the notably bowler-friendly conditions that have prevailed in recent years, particularly since the WTC came into being in 2019, it is a bit underwhelming. The overall batting average for the top six in the Tests he had played was 33.88. A player of great innings, yes - seven of his eight hundreds came away from home - but a pretty average player overall.

Rahul has indeed failed to fill his boots at times - including in the first innings - but he is also not the luckiest batter going around either. And that is not insignificant. Of the 47 batters to have offered 30 or more catches in this period, 24 have had a lower percentage of them held. The luckiest batters happen to be Pant, Labuschagne and Stokes in that order. Rahul had been getting dismissed every 11.67 mistakes, leaving 22 luckier batters than him out of 57 that have been dismissed by a bowler 30 or more times.

Of course, you'll never hear players complaining about a lack of luck, even though they know the role that it plays, especially in Test batting. They won't say it because they don't want to stop improving, they don't want to stop repeating their processes.

Rahul, filthy with himself for throwing it away on 42 in the first innings, pulled himself up and repeated his processes all right. Actually, what Rahul did in the first innings also was part of a process. Throught that breezy first-innings knock, he played more cover-drives than he usually does outside Asia and the Caribbean. It seemed to be a plan: being slightly proactive denied England the freedom to keep bowling a good length. The ball that got him was full enough for the drive. What hurt him more was that he had done the hard work, then failed to convert the start into a big one.

In the second innings, when the bounce became a bit more uneven, he went to stumps on day three unbeaten with 95% control and 47 off 75. He had put out all the best hits in that evening session. A back-foot punch off Chris Woakes in front of point, three gorgeous cover-drives, one square-drive off one knee, an on-drive and a pull off Shoaib Bashir.

On the fourth morning, the uneven bounce and nip off the surface increased. India lost Shubman Gill in the first full over of the morning. Pant tried to counter the movement and the new ball in his own idiosyncratic manner. Rahul, at the other end, was a proper classic Test batter. In the first hour he scored just 7 off 44 balls, with a control rate of 89%.

When it got difficult, Rahul trusted his method and processes to take him past the new ball. Or, in the event he didn't succeed, at least his efforts would give the incoming batters an older, softer ball. He also just about managed to nudge Pant when he tried one slog too many. Not everyone has the tact to speak to Pant. He famously got upset with Cheteshwar Pujara for asking him to be watchful in Sydney 2020-21, in the last over before the new ball. He still tried to hit a six to get to his hundred before the new ball, but maintained that the doubt planted in his mind caused the mis-hit for him to be caught on 97.

Rahul managed to get through to Pant. He spoke three languages: Tamil with Sai Sudharsan, Hindi with Pant, Kannada with friend and fellow Bangalorean Karun Nair. The real language he spoke was that of proper Test batting, playing the ball on its merit because he has the ability to do so. Seamlessly he shifted gears as the ball got older. When he was scoring the first 47 off 75 or the next 7 off 44 or the next 46 off 83 or 37 off the 44 after reaching his hundred, you couldn't look and tell he was doing anything out of character. Every tempo seemed natural to him, in his own bubble, almost a meditative state.

In the last five tours outside Aisa and the Caribbean, Rahul now has had superb starts: 84 and 129 in the first two Tests in England in 2021, 123 in the first Test in South Africa later that year, 101 in Centurion in the same fixture in South Africa two years later, 26 and 77 late last year in Perth and now this century in the most difficult conditions in this Test so far. However, incredibly he doesn't have a single blockbuster series. The highest he has ever aggregated in a series is 393.

Rahul acknowledged how disappointed he was that, despite batting well in Australia on the last tour, he didn't have that defining series. He also said he knows that effort, preparation, skill and application don't always translate into results in this game. That, if you let the outcomes play on your mind, you will be paralysed playing this game. How sweet it will be, though, if he can use this rare stroke of luck and finally go on to chalk up that big 500-run series.