A moment arrives, so does Kohli

Perhaps, the most striking thing about Virat Kohli's latest One-Day International hundred - 34th if you'd lost count - was its apparent scratchiness through the middle phase. Thirty-nine overs had gone when Kohli attempted to flick part-time offie JP Duminy towards mid-wicket but instead got an inside edge towards fine-leg, allowing him to saunter back for a two. Kohli didn't jump about but quietly raised his bat as Newlands rose as one. Duminy had bowled a nice spell, prising out Shikhar Dhawan and Ajinkya Rahane. But just when it looked like the game was about a man seldom spoken about, it once again became about the man who is always talked about.

"You have to take the opportunities when it comes, especially in the first 20 balls. We've created chances, but unfortunately we haven't got it to stick. He's in really good form at the moment. He's had an unbelievable year and he's just carried on. He oozes confidence. We're going to have to come up with different plans for getting through him. We're going to have to reflect and work out how we can be better," Duminy said with a shrug after the match. It was a rather cute admission that South Africa's plans against Kohli had only slowed but not stopped him. His scores in the series now read 112, 46* and 160*

This was not your archetypal Kohli innings. It didn't play out like a heavy-metal song - start high, get higher. This one was disarming in a more ebb and flow sort of way. It didn't come in a manic run chase, yet it involved manic running. It was joint-slowest of all his ODI hundreds (119 balls) but had the same effect of leaving the opposition frazzled and outmanoeuvred. At the end of it all, it was tempting to conclude what has been suggested for a while now. Kohli is a genius, a player operating to a different set of physical and mental rules in modern-day cricket.

It is easy to get drunk on superlatives just as it is easy to become accustomed to his batting feats. But this was a genuinely rare combination: a great player producing a great performance against a quality opposition without ever appearing great while producing greatness. If Kohli has done this before - difficult circumstances, big performance in the first innings - and there must surely be a couple of this kind - then that should not diminish the achievement now. There is always an urge to scoff at the sensationalising of the present.

This was every bit sensational as one of his famous chases. The pitch offered pace and bounce at the start and Kagiso Rabada once again produced a quality burst up top when he so nearly had Kohli out LBW for a nought with a full inducker, only to be denied on a review by a faint inside edge that Kohli himself didn't know he'd managed. As the ball got older, it stopped on the batsmen, with hitting through the line getting progressively difficult. Spinners, even those of the part-time ilk, were kept interested. On such a day, Kohli batted 49 overs and ran for 100 of his 160 runs, reaching a strike-rate of a run-a-ball only off the last ball of the innings. It was as a testament to his peak physical conditioning, one he admitted to have given him a different kind of a high.

"These are the days that give you satisfaction. As an athlete you crave for days like these," Kohli reflected. "I am going to be 30 this year. The decision [to work hard on his fitness] was in terms of extending the quality of cricket that you want to play at an older age as well. I want to play this kind of cricket even when I am 34-35. That's why I train so much.

"Because I am a guy who likes to play with intensity. Once that is gone, I don't know what I am going to do on the field. I try to protect that. I try to train as much as I can. Keep a check on my diet. Those things pay off on days like these. When the team needs it, and you stand up, and you are able to pull through. Amazing things happen when you are thinking of the team throughout. You can push your body beyond limits that you might push yourself otherwise. I experienced that today, and that was an amazing feeling."

Given the conditions, he mistimed shots once in a while, the leading edge landed safely on more than an occasion when he played early against spin. In isolation, it was a remarkable innings. ToKohliit was a footnote. After an early to-and-fro battle with Rabada, Kohli had reached 19 off 29 balls. Shikhar Dhawan had five more runs than him, having faced 10 fewer deliveries. So when the change bowlers began operating, Kohli let Dhawan play aggressor while staying content in turning the strike over. The roles stayed that way even as the second-wicket stand crossed 100 - Dhawan reached his 50 off 42 deliveries while Kohli took 64 for his. When Dhawan fell for 76 against the run of play, Kohli decided to switch gears but was weighed down by a slew of wickets falling at the other end. Then the Indian captain decided to hang around longer, despite the physical demands of his fighting innings.

"I wanted to accelerate at different times," he revealed. "When Shikhar was batting, my job was to take singles, that is also very important when the other guy is set and scoring at a higher rate, so you sit back and take singles and keep rotating the strike, to be able to get the partnership going. So when he got out I wanted to accelerate but we lost 2-3 wickets immediately. Today we had wickets falling and we had to string in more partnerships, so I had to change my gameplan.

"I was pleased from that point of view that I was able to bat through because I was struggling with a bit of cramp around the 90s. Then wickets kept falling, I decided to hit out because I thought I might not have enough energy left."

Yet there he was playing an almost Dhoni-esque innings, leaving nothing to chance and taking it deep. When he stayed back against Duminy and Tahir, he never did so against the flighted delivery. When he moved forward, he did so with decisiveness, using his elastic wrists to help him out on the occasion that he didn't quite get to the pitch of the ball. His physical capacity dropped in the sapping heat, but the intensity didn't. With Bhuvneshwar for company, he played reactive, percentage cricket before turning to premeditation only when the 300-total appeared possible. Off the last two balls of the innings, he whipped Rabada over mid-wicket for six and then waited for the overcompensation to drill the next one past mid-off.

"Sometimes you set up for a shot before the ball is bowled," Kohli said of his final flourish. "You nominate an area and you hope that the bowler will bowl there, and that was one of those instances. I would say I picked up the ball from the pitch and reacted to it, and he bowled it at a decent click. I predicted that ball and I was in a position to hit that shot. But the last one I knew that he was trying to bowl a yorker to me. If you have batted well through the innings then you are seeing the ball well also and you know the pace of the wicket. So your chances of scoring become higher than the guy who's bowling at you. So that was just a case of that. That feels really good that we could get to 300-plus compared to 275-plus. That is psychologically a big pressure thing for the opposition, knowing that we have those two wristspinners as well."

It is easy to be bullish if you've come to a knife fight armed with a grenade launcher as the Indian captain often does in these 50-over games. But to be just as ruthless with an unshaven pencil is remarkable. Kohli left behind many of his innings-building traits for this one and still walked away having played the innings of the match. It was a performance to stack up proudly alongside his many ODI gems.

By now, it is not simply how many tons Kohli scores that matters, although there are many of them, He's shown it on numerous occasions now that he has the quality to match the quantity. In Australia, England, New Zealand, in India, in South Africa. In ICC events, in tri-series to keep his team in the competition, in the first game of a bilateral series to make a statement, batting first, chasing - he's done it all. Whenever a moment arrives, so does he.