The clenched fists, the fiery eyes and the raised bat pointing towards the dressing room signified relief for Gautam Gambhir.
After a single off Nuwan Kulasekara helped the opener reach his 10th ODI hundred in the Asia Cup match on Tuesday, Gambhir had finally broken that turgid pause, which seemed to stretch towards eternity since his previous hundred was scored against New Zealand at Vadodara on December 4, 2010.
The drought of centuries was not restricted to limited-over matches alone as Gambhir is yet to add to his nine Test hundreds with the last one coming at Chittagong in January 2010.
For a player, who was adjudged the ICC Test Player of 2009, the timidity ahead of the three-figure mark was confusing because in this same period of unfulfilled promises, Gambhir struck nine fifties in Tests and 10 in ODIs, including the 97 in the World Cup final.
A spate of injuries ranging from sore elbow to the scary concussion in the head did not help matters either and stress was further aggravated during an exchange of differing views between him and M.S. Dhoni through press conferences in Australia.
To add to his woes, Dhoni rested his defence of the rotation policy on fielding skills and the captain bundled up a 30-year-old Gambhir with Sachin Tendulkar (38) and Virender Sehwag (33). The suggestion made it sound as though the diminutive batsman was already in that cricketing age-group that looks for pension policies.
Breathing space
Gambhir's 100 against Sri Lanka should offer him breathing space and he remains critical for India in a stage when the seniors are bowing out and the juniors, with the exception of Virat Kohli, are yet to seal their spots.
There may be technical blips that stilted his ability to fully flower in Australia but a start has been made to get back to the rarefied heights he occupied especially after that 436-ball 137 that revived India against New Zealand at Napier in 2009.
Gambhir was expected to address the media on Thursday before Vinay Kumar stepped in as his replacement. Perhaps the opener would rather let his bat do the talking.
