Stranded on 99 as hopes of a marquee series victory went up in smoke last summer, there was never much chance of England allowing recent history to repeat on Jonny Bairstow this week.
So it is, that in Dharamshala from Thursday, despite a quiet tour to date, he will become the 17th Englishman to win a 100th Test cap, and do so bristling with perhaps more pride than any of those before.
Second, of course, to batting, it is bristling that Bairstow has done best throughout his dozen years in (and out of) the side; at the crease, in the press, amongst the soup and sarnies in the lunch room at Lord’s.
That famed knack for self-ignition, the ability to start a war of words with a blank notebook, is every bit as much a part of the Bairstow story as his generational talent for thwacking a cricket ball. For all weight and style of runs have played their fair part, the landmark owes plenty to a thunderous force of will.
The emotion on display in media rounds to mark the occasion, however, has borne a softer tinge. There has, rightly, been no attempt to mask the deep satisfaction at challenges, both personal and professional, overcome, and Bairstow has admitted that tears could flow this week, particularly with so many friends and family, including his partner, mother, and young son, watching on.
Conditions in the week leading up to this fifth and final Test in the mountains - cold, wet and grey - might have offered the Yorkshireman another taste of home. Blessedly, the forecast for the five days ahead is more upbeat, as England, trailing 3-1, look to leave India with the consolation of a second victory on the tour.
In the clouds, though, things change quickly and perhaps that is apt: the Himalayas provide a more fitting backdrop to one of English cricket’s most volatile careers than the gentle rolls of the Dales.
In the time it has taken to play 99 Tests, Bairstow has missed or been left out of another 51 and in keeping with this hokey-cokey existence, it is both unfair and unsurprising that he reaches a ton of appearances with some asking whether it might be 100 and out.
Though the Bazball era bears Brendon McCullum’s name and Ben Stokes’s face, it was Bairstow who first gave it life, that dazzling run of four hundreds in five innings in the summer of 2022 the early embodiment of a precocious philosophy and the catalyst for so much of what was to come.
Since it was curtailed by a horrendous leg break, however, returns have dwindled. Since his comeback at the start of last summer, Bairstow averages only a tick above 30 (albeit against the two best attacks in the world) and his top score remains that unbeaten 99 in the drawn Old Trafford Test that saw the Ashes slide away.
On the current tour, in eight innings, he is yet to pass 40. Without the final impression of a hefty score in Dharamshala, the debate threatens to again dominate the spring vacuum and a four-month gap between Tests, with Harry Brook and a familiar middle-order logjam lurking.
These are questions perhaps ill-timed, when celebration of Bairstow’s brilliance is order of the day, but a summer featuring home series against West Indies and Sri Lanka means they will not be put off long.
Loyalty to broadly the same group of players for the best part of two years has reaped heavy reward for the current regime, but ahead of a blockbuster 2025 in which they meet India (home) and Australia (away), England may well be minded to widen the pool. In the likes Ollie Robinson, Jamie Smith and James Rew, keeper-batter talent runs typically deep.
The fickle nature of form is one thing but the inevitability of succession another. Of the 16 men in England’s hundred club, Andrew Strauss and Graham Thorpe both left the stage on a century, while only five of their peers have so far gone beyond 118. Any player, in just about any sport, reaching such a milestone must be nearer the end of a career than its start.
Bairstow’s, though, has been defined by a refusal to go quietly. Clearly, he does not fancy himself done yet.
