Long after the dust is settled on his career and we are done celebrating his hundreds and his theatrics, we will someday sit and talk about Virat Kohli’s mini classics against great attacks in dodgy conditions.

There is the 81 in the third innings in Vizag where he whipped proper shooters for fours through midwicket. The 45 against New Zealand on an Eden Gardens track with turn, seam and uneven bounce all available was especially pristine. Who can forget the flawless 74 before the 36 all out in Adelaide? That there are so many will reinforce the difficult conditions and attacks Kohli has faced throughout his career and yet maintained an average around 50 while being an absolute king in another format and an equivocal great in the third.

Since Kohli’s debut, among the 18 batters who have scored 500 or more runs in Tests in South Africa, the toughest place to bat in this era, only three average more than Kohli’s 51.7: David Warner, AB de Villiers and Ben Stokes. One of them is an all-time great, although the other two are not nearly as versatile as Kohli. In matches that Kohli has played in South Africa, a more accurate gauge for the conditions he has played in, no batter has been nearly as successful as him.

South Africa will always hold an emotional place in Kohli’s heart. This is where, in India’s first Test after Sachin Tendulkar, he batted at No. 4 and nearly scored twin centuries in Johannesburg in 2013-14, never to leave that spot, or the one in Indian hearts, again. This is where, on his next trip in 2017-18, the first big test of his ambition, he led a beleaguered side with a century and a half-century, and registered that one Test win that they needed to believe in themselves and start a magical cycle of away tours.

South Africa it was where Kohli captained in his last Test, sledging, well, the broadcasters. South Africa took it his all, gave him a lot of it back, but eventually broke his heart.

And yet, two years later, Kohli is back in South Africa, arguably batting the best he has ever done. Not only is he emotionally fresh once again, but he is also still working on his game. On this trip, he has batted differently to the previous South Africa tours. The stance is narrower, he is not itching to get on the off stump and outside, and he is not walking at the bowlers. He is less likely to play at balls that should be left alone.

Also, he has taken away from the bowler that back-of-a-length ball that he was forced to play at without any rewards because he had committed too far forward. Now he is square-cutting them gloriously, a shot he had sacrificed in order to cut down the movement but one he has reintroduced at such a late stage in his career.

In a series that is a nightmare for the batters, Kohli is the only one who has got starts in all of his three innings. His lowest score has been 38. Nobody can approach perfection in these conditions, but Kohli has looked comfortable every time he has batted. It has never been more apparent than during his 46 on the first day in Cape Town on a day when 23 wickets fell. Of the 27 individual innings that started on the day, only four went past 20, and none past Kohli’s 46.

This innings had all the certainty needed to succeed in these conditions: either don’t push at balls outside the line of your head or go hard if you do. He will be disappointed that when India’s collapse of 6 for 0 started – just when he had become a little loose to try to score more quickly – he edged one and was caught.

Yet Kohli won’t let the dismissal bog him down. Something has been unlocked in him in the past year and a half. He is at peace with what happens. He appreciates the vagaries of the game and life perhaps more than he previously did. Apart from still looking for any small improvement he can make in his game, Kohli carries with him the confidence of having scored runs in his best format – the ODIs. During his worst period in international cricket, when Kohli went three years without a century, he played hardly any ODI cricket: nine in 2020, and three in 2021.

Day two of the Cape Town Test could be Kohli’s last day of Test cricket in South Africa. India don’t go there again in this FTP, which ends in 2027, by which time he will be 39. As a team man, Kohli will hope he is not even needed to bat, and that India go on to draw the series without incident. With three second-innings wickets down, South Africa still need 36 runs to make India bat again. On a Test pitch unlike any seen in South Africa, it’s hard to predict which way the Test goes.

However, even a small or a middling chase can prove to be tricky on this devilish pitch. There could yet be another Kohli mini classic in store for South Africa, who, in turn, will hope to break his heart again.