India, Jan. 14 -- There are innings that win matches, and then there are innings that rescue narratives. KL Rahul's century today belonged to the second category - the kind that doesn't just add runs to the scoreboard, it drags an innings back from the edge and then dares the opposition to chase a number that shouldn't have been possible from the situation India were in.

This wasn't the clean comfort of a top-order platform. This was a middle-order rescue mission, launched when the innings was beginning to wobble and the game's momentum was quietly moving away from India.

India's top order promised familiarity and delivered anxiety. The early flow suggested they could set something dominant, but the innings ran into a familiar modern OD...