Within a week of assembling in England in June for a five-Test series, the realisation dawned on KL Rahul that he was the senior-most specialist batter in the Indian side. Part of that realisation was organic, part stemmed from the fact that several of the younger batters on their first tour to England made a beeline to pick the 33-year-old’s brain and gain insights into the challenges of tackling the Dukes ball in unfamiliar conditions.

Rahul had been there and done that, of course. He had toured England for the first time with the Test team in 2018, where he scored a century in the final game at the Oval. Three years on, he got on to the Honour’s Board at Lord’s with another wonderful hundred.