India, Jan. 12 -- For a decade and a half, India's ODI chases had a simple emotional equation: if MS Dhoni was still batting, the match was still under control. Not because he always finished with fireworks, but because he turned panic into a process. India have searched for that exact stabilising force ever since - not the aura, not the captaincy, not the mythology - but the practical skill of closing a chase without letting the game slip into chaos.

KL Rahul's last few years suggest India may have found the closest modern equivalent to that role. The comparison is risky because Dhoni's imprint is so large, but when you strip it down to the hardest test of finishing - successful ODI chases where the batter is part of the chase - the num...