Shubman Gill stroked an unbeaten 52 in the run chase in Ranchi.

The emotions associated with scoring a hundred are often of joy and contentment. Sometimes, it can be about validation and surprise but it's almost never about nerves. It's not what you're expected to feel once you get past the milestone.

But just a few weeks ago, Shubman Gill had a "weird" feeling even after scoring the most important hundred of his career in Visakhapatnam.

"I will sum it up in one line. My heartbeat playing the first ball and the last ball were the same throughout the innings," Gill had told Kevin Pietersen in an interaction on Jio Cinema. "That's how nervous I was feeling even after scoring my hundred. I was talking to Rahul [Dravid] sir in the morning... It was quite weird for me. I have never experienced anything like this."

Gill would go on to explain how it was not the "outside noise" that was making him jittery but the "expectations" he had from himself. It's a feeling most would have experienced first-hand but in Gill's case, you could see why the feeling was exaggerated. He was, after all, the second-most experienced specialist batter in the side for India.

You aren't supposed to shoulder that kind of burden when you are 24 years old. Not when you are still finding your feet at the No.3 position. Certainly not in a marquee Test series against England. And surely not when your team is trailing 1-0 and up against a disruptive side that's redefining Test cricket by the day.

But Gill, then at 21 Test caps, put in a performance beyond his years and played a crucial role in India leveling the series. He had finally done what he "expected" of himself, and it wasn't very different to the kind of expectations that India have from themselves when playing in home conditions, and with such a proud record to defend.

Gill was right in the middle of it when India beat England in Ranchi to win their 17th successive series at home. On the spiciest pitch of the series and with young spinners having their tails up, he found a way to score in difficult conditions and roared back from another first-innings failure in style.

His contribution in a tricky run-chase of 192 in Ranchi, where he held up one end as Shoaib Bashir did what Shoaib Bashir has been doing in this Test, cannot be overstated. And you only had to look at his first-innings dismissal to get a sense of the challenge that awaited him. For, on the second day, a ball from Bashir had hit a crack outside off-stump, spun in sharply and trapped plumb in front. It was one of the five wickets in the innings that fell to unplayable deliveries. More were expected in the fourth innings of a Test where the scores only seemed to go lower and lower.

"When you are playing on a wicket like this, you have to keep the cracks out of the game," Gill said, explaining his plans for the run-chase on Jio Cinema. "What I mean by that is that if the ball hits the crack, you can't do anything about it. But if the ball isn't hitting the crack, it was a good wicket to bat. I had a plan against the offspinners that I am going to keep the lbw out of the game.

"I have always played offspinners stepping down the wicket and in this game I had to apply myself and just be calm and not be too tentative playing the offspinners."

What stood out about his game against the ilk was how patient he was ready to be. Of the 50 balls he faced from Shoaib Bashir, Gill scored a total of 32 runs but as many as 12 of them came in sixes when the target was below 20 runs. Those were the only boundaries he hit during his unbeaten innings of 52 off 124 balls. It meant he went 119 balls without scoring a single boundary, which in this frenetic era of Bazball was a total outlier.

Not that Ben Stokes didn't try to bait him into hitting the big shots. The England captain was happy to keep the field up and ask Gill to go big against Bashir, who was operating from round-the-wicket, but that would have meant going for high-risk shots on a tricky pitch. Gill instead was happy defending and nudging the singles when the opportunity presented itself, a ploy that Dhruv Jurel happily bought into at the other end. The pair, during their unbeaten 72-run stand, batted out a large chunk of the 31 overs that India went without a boundary, but looked at peace with how they were going about it.

England didn't mind it of course; it meant bowling more deliveries on an unpredictable pitch, which increased their chances of bowling an unplayable ball. But Gill and Jurel showed incredible temperament, playing straight, playing patiently and affirming one of the maxims of Test cricket. That there is no one rhythm to play it.

"I think this would go down as my only innings where I didn't hit a boundary before scoring a fifty," Gill said in a sideline interview, "but you have to play the situation sometimes. Their bowlers were bowling good lines, they were also protecting their boundaries pretty well, so it was important for us to keep playing the game and not let the bowlers bowl too many maidens. Because then, on a wicket like this, you are waiting for a magical ball to happen to you. So the plan was to keep picking the singles and pounce on anything the moment they give you anything loose."

When India hit the winning runs at 1:40 pm in Ranchi and won the Test series, Gill didn't hold back his celebrations. Batting in a skullcap, he had both his hands in the air as he completed the second run and jumped for joy. That could be as animated as he's ever been during a Test match.

It was a stark contrast to his held-back celebration in Visakhapatnam, which was perhaps more relief than joy from a man who was as nervous then as he was at the start of his innings. But with the expectation of scoring runs and winning India the Test and the series fulfilled, Gill's nervousness had given way to sheer joy. The burden of expectation was off his shoulders, just like it's now for India.