Can Rahul close gap between his stats and his ceiling?

Exactly 100 at Lord's, exactly 100 in Ahmedabad.

An untimely and uncharacteristically loose drive against Shoaib Bashir, an untimely and uncharacteristically loose drive against Jomel Warrican.

The Ahmedabad 100 lacked the other elements of cricketing tragedy and farce that characterised the Lord's 100. KL Rahul was not involved in a partner getting run out. His dismissal did not change the complexion of the game.

But it was the same number on the scorecard. 100. The same number of runs added to his career aggregate.

Three of Rahul's last four Test centuries have ended at 100 or 101. He was last man out when he made 101 at Centurion, so there's no reason for anyone to hold that score against him. But if you're among the growing band of well-wishers who wish his batting average would climb high enough to at least somewhat reflect his skill and Test-match accomplishments, the dismissals at Lord's and Ahmedabad might have made you howl in anguish.

And it may not just be one of those random things. Rahul has 11 Test hundreds now, and his average across those 11 innings - let's call it his century average - is 128.54. It's the worst century average of any of the 18 India batters who have scored at least ten Test hundreds. It's the third-worst of the 146 batters, globally and across the full sweep of cricket's history, to have scored ten Test hundreds.

Hey, at least he isn't as bad as Asad Shafiq and Tamim Iqbal in turning hundreds into big'uns.

There are other factors that go into the century average - as an opener, Rahul will rarely score unbeaten hundreds - but nothing inflates that figure like big hundreds. That Rahul doesn't have very many - he's only crossed 150 twice, both times in 2016 - is one of the many reasons why he has a career average of 36.00 despite the many very good and great innings he has played all over the world. If you need reminding, he has six Test hundreds as an opener in Australia, England and South Africa - Sunil Gavaskar, with seven, is the only Asian opener with more - and another as a middle-order batter.

There are, of course, other reasons for Rahul's average being what it is and what it isn't. He went through a horror run across 2018 and 2019, when his technique and judgment of his off stump fell apart, possibly because he was trying to be too many things - unshackled aggressor in T20s as well as Test opener in challenging conditions - at the same time. He has played much of his Test cricket in an era of bowler-friendly pitches, and he's happened to miss Tests, for various reasons, just when India's top order has flourished on flat pitches.

Rahul was dropped, for example, after the 2019 tour of the West Indies. Over India's next two series, against South Africa and Bangladesh at home, Rohit Sharma, opening for the first time in Test cricket, and Mayank Agarwal scored six hundreds, including three doubles, in five Tests.

Rahul was next dropped in 2023, after a lean run that culminated with two Tests against Australia on dustbowls in Nagpur and Delhi. Shubman Gill replaced him for the next two Tests, on another dustbowl in Indore, followed by a highway in Ahmedabad where only 22 wickets fell over the five days of a dull draw. Gill made a hundred in that Test.

Of course he did. Top Test batters have always filled their boots when given the chance to do so. That insatiable greed to maximise the good times is a thing Rahul hasn't really shown through his career, as his century average suggests. Or as his average for 2025 so far suggests. He's having an incredible year for all intents and purposes, and it's brought him an average of 49.92.

It's vexing, because Rahul, for most of this year, has looked technically flawless, showing no sign of even a minor weakness that a bowler could hope to target. He's gone hours and hours without being beaten by a ball that didn't deserve to beat him. He's been watchful, but he's also been alert to scoring opportunities. And yet, 49.92. It's the second-best year he's had in Test cricket. His best year, 2016, brought him an average of 59.88.

That sounds pretty good until you realise that Virat Kohli and Cheteshwar Pujara had three years each with 500-plus runs at 60-plus averages. Rohit Sharma and Ajinkya Rahane did a 500-600 year once each. Rishabh Pant, Gill and Ravindra Jadeja - if their 2025 averages don't drop below 60 - will have done it twice, once and once, respectively, by the end of the year.

Rahul still has time to turn that 49.92 into something far more substantial and give the career needle a firm nudge in the direction of 40.

The gap between Rahul's numbers and the high ceiling he has demonstrated time and again makes his career one of the most fascinating of his time. But that gap also reflects the leap he hasn't yet made, from batter of immense and proven quality to run-scorer of insatiable greed. Can he make that leap now, at 33?