For the first 14 balls he faced on Sunday in Nagpur, he did not score a single run. He was being tested by Pat Cummins and Nathan Coulter-Nile in the channel outside off stump. He was getting beaten for pace. He was getting beaten by swing.

Off the 14th ball, perhaps feeling the pressure, he played the ugliest shot he’d play all evening – an attempted heave over long on that hit the inside edge of the bat that came down at an angle. The ball hit him full on the pads and looped up, almost ending up as a return catch to Pat Cummins.

And then that was it. The next ball was a half volley that he drove elegantly past mid off. The ball after that he played the same shot but this time over the fielder’s head, with more authority. From then on, Rohit Sharma did not look back.

The margin of win for India and Rohit’s strike rate of 115 for his majestic 125 don’t tell the full story. The relaid Nagpur pitch was not easy to bat on by any stretch of imagination. That he was the only batsman on either side to have faced 20 balls or more to have a strike rate of over 100 in the match tells you part of the story. It tells you he was the only batsman to dominate the bowling.

That he hit five sixes in one of the largest grounds in the country, on a pitch where the ball kept stopping tells you another part of the story. And the fact that even when he couldn’t run properly towards the end of the innings with cramping legs, he found the boundary with ease tells you he was, to use a cricketing adage, in the zone.

Rohit’s confidence in his abilities to play catch up with his strike rate is almost as impressive as his abilities to clear the boundary at will. That front-foot pull shot of his has become a signature – his ability to read the length and get into position quickly have turned him into a six-hitting machine of sorts.

On Sunday, what made his innings more impressive was how easy he made it look on a tough wicket. Sure, Australia didn’t come here with the greatest bowling attack but he didn’t just take on the weak links, he went after the men in form. Coulter-Nile has been Australia’s best bowler in this series without a doubt and Rohit took him on, pulling a short ball over midwicket for a six, to get to his century no less.

And boy, does he like scoring them against Australia. Six out of his 14 centuries in ODIs have come against the men in yellow. Among Indians, only Sachin Tendulkar has scored more against them – his nine centuries coming 71 matches. Rohit has taken just 28 for his six. Let that sink in.

There was another statistic that summed up Rohit’s brilliance at the top of the order. He reached 6000 runs in ODIs, becoming the third fastest Indian to get to the milestone, in 162 innings. When he got to 2000, in 82 innings, he was the third slowest Indian to get there. His last 4000-odd runs have come in 80 innings.

Just like he showed during his innings in Nagpur with 14 dot balls to begin his innings, slow starts don’t faze Rohit Sharma. Leave it up to him, and sooner or later he will catch up.