Kohli's homecoming party turns into Rohit extravaganza

They came for Virat Kohli, but they got Rohit Sharma. This was an exhibition of white-ball batting in Delhi, as India's captain turned a chase of 273 - which Afghanistan hoped would prove awkward - into a glorified middle practice, treating their seamers with the disdain usually reserved for net bowlers.

India's second match of this tournament was billed as Kohli's homecoming, his second and final World Cup appearance in the city he grew up in. Twelve years ago, he made 12 off 20 balls in a low-key win over the Netherlands; now, he was the man whose name featured on every other blue jersey in the 32,000-strong crowd.

And yet Kohli's unbeaten half-century - an innings which included the winning runs with a glorious straight drive off Azmatullah Omarzai - was merely the support to Rohit's headline act. After a six-ball duck against Australia in Chennai, Rohit's 131 off 84 balls seemed to make a statement: India are the favourites for this tournament, and they know it.

Most opening batters will tell you that their job has become harder in the last two or three years, since fresh batches of white Kookaburra balls started swinging and nipping more than they once had. But Rohit has been playing a different game: his strike rates in the first powerplay this year and in 2022, of 111.58 and 100.68, are the best of his ODI career.

Rohit's innings included 16 fours, with the usual array of leg-side flicks, deft late cuts and drop-kicks over mid-off. Yet this is a batter who will be remembered not primarily for his elegance while hitting fours, but his timing, authority and power while hitting sixes: he hit five of them on Tuesday night, each an assertion of his dominance - and India's.

First, he charged down the pitch and launched Fazalhaq Farooqi over long-off, Afghanistan's fastest bowler relegated to the status of a medium-pacer. When Farooqi, under pressure after consecutive fours in his next over, went to his slower ball, Rohit swivel-pulled him hard and flat over square leg.

Next came the record-breaker, off Naveen-ul-Haq, a cracked pull off his right hip into the Mohinder Amarnath Stand which took him past Chris Gayle's benchmark for the most sixes in all formats of international cricket. It was only fitting that he made history with his trademark shot: if you close your eyes and picture any of his previous 553 sixes for India, the image that comes to mind will resemble the 554th.

The fourth was the biggest of the five, a similar shot with a steeper trajectory off Omarzai. And the fifth was the final act of a left-right-goodnight assault on Rashid Khan: a square cut for four and a pull that bounced just short of the midwicket rope, followed by a pendulum swing into the stands, his back leg giving way as though the Feroz Shah Kotla strip was a ballroom dancefloor.

Rohit broke countless other records: the fastest World Cup hundred by an Indian batter; a record seventh World Cup century; the most runs (79) scored out of a team's first 100 in World Cups; the most Powerplay runs by an India batter in an ODI. But this was not an innings or a night that records alone did justice to.

Instead, it was defined by a noise: the distinctive sound of an Indian crowd roaring their appreciation for a hero. If the first week of this World Cup has not delivered the attendances or close finishes that its organisers would have loved, it has reinforced that there is no spectacle quite like a match involving India.

This was, Rohit explained, a premeditated assault. "It was a good pitch to bat on," he said. "I was backing myself to play my natural game. I knew once you get your eye in, the wicket is only going to get easier and easier… It's important not to lose that mindset of trying to put that pressure on the opposition.

"I know when I'm batting at the top of the order, it's my duty and my job to get that start that we want - especially in the chase - and then put the team into a comfortable position as much as possible… When you get days like this, you've got to make it count and make it big."

Rohit made clear in the build-up to this tournament that he knows exactly what is at stake for his side. For all the talent in their ranks, India have not won a men's ICC event in a decade, a trophy drought that is unfathomable for the biggest, most powerful nation in this sport. "Pressure is always there: we are Indian cricketers," he said, before their win over Australia.

The question is whether they can play with such clarity and freedom come the knockout stages of this World Cup. It is unfathomable that they will not qualify for the semi-finals, but what then? Last year, in Adelaide, Rohit eked out 27 off 28 balls as India were demolished by England at that stage of the T20 World Cup.

We will find out over the next five-and-a-half weeks whether things will be any different on home soil, with Pakistan waiting in Ahmedabad this weekend. But for now at least, Rohit and India are doing all they can to make this country dream.