The ten-year anniversary of a seminal event in Indian cricket history is almost upon us. The date might help you guess which one it is. The venue almost certainly will.

October 16, 2013. Jaipur.

The scene was the second ODI of a seven-match series of colossal run-feasts. Australia batted first and scored 359 for 5. India hadn’t chased anything of that magnitude before, and only once in all ODIs had a bigger total been surpassed. And if you were an India fan of a particular disposition, you would have remembered, without wanting to, that Australia had set India the same target in the 2003 World Cup final.

India chased it down this time. They won by nine wickets. They won with 39 balls to spare. Thirty-nine.

That victory represented an inflection point for three batters who were at different stages in the journey to ODI greatness.

Virat Kohli was perhaps already there; his unbeaten 52-ball 100 – still the fastest century by an India batter in ODIs – was a frightening revelation that, having done the 133 not out and the 183, he could also do this. Rohit Sharma, with two hundreds and an average of 32.50 from his previous 103 ODIs, scored an unbeaten 141 off 123 balls that gave the first real glimpse of the method that would turn him a churner-out of unimaginably big hundreds.

On the ten-year anniversary of this match, Kohli and Rohit will be between matches at the World Cup, between Pakistan in Ahmedabad and Bangladesh in Pune.

Shikhar Dhawan, provider of vital early impetus to India’s Jaipur chase with 95 off 86 balls, won’t be with them.

Time marches relentlessly on, and at twice the speed in sport. Dhawan, modern ODI great and one of only eight batters in the format’s history with over 5000 runs at a 40-plus average and a 90-plus strike rate (Rohit and Kohli are two of the others), hasn’t played for India since the Chattogram ODI last December, and it’s not your fault if you’ve barely noticed his absence since then; you’ve simply had too much else to keep track of.

If you don’t remember Dhawan’s 3 off eight in Chattogram, it’s probably because any memory of it has been obliterated by Ishan Kishan’s 210 off 131. If you’ve not thought about Dhawan all that much since then, it’s possibly because Shubman Gill, rested for that series in Bangladesh, has gone on to enjoy one of the greatest years any batter in ODI history has had.

Dhawan was playing for India less than a year ago, but it already feels like he played in another era.

It’s exactly how the world felt after that Jaipur ODI. It had only been a year and a half since Sachin Tendulkar’s last ODI, and only nine months since India had jettisoned Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir.

Dhawan had scored a rollicking 187 on Test debut, and earned an ODI recall after five mostly forgettable games in 2010 and 2011. That comeback year, 2013, was something like Gill’s 2023: 1162 runs at 50.52 and a strike rate of 97.89. When he brought up his fifth ODI hundred that November, Dhawan had played just 28 games. This is one Indian ODI record Gill hasn’t managed to break: he scored his fifth hundred, against Bangladesh during the Asia Cup, in his 32nd match.

From that prolific 2013 until the 2019 World Cup, Dhawan stood more or less toe to toe with Rohit among the world’s foremost ODI openers. They didn’t bat like Jonny Bairstow and Jason Roy, because India’s line-up didn’t have anything like England’s depth. For most of that period, India struggled to identify a solid middle-order combination and lacked bowlers who could hit sixes down the order.

And so Rohit and Dhawan, and Kohli at No. 3, batted like at least one of them had to still be at the crease at the 40-over mark. They dovetailed beautifully to make this happen time after time, while playing markedly different roles.

Jaipur was an early glimpse of these roles. Dhawan made 95 off 86 out of an opening partnership of 176. Rohit, who contributed 63 off 71 to that stand, accelerated to score 78 off his last 52 balls. From the start of 2013 to the start of the 2019 World Cup, this is more or less how they batted in ODIs.