The sound was unmistakable. A sharp crack of the ball flying off Virat Kohli's bat and thudding into the picket fence at the cover boundary on Ground 2 of the BCCI Centre of Excellence. Kohli stood and slammed Andhra captain Nitish Reddy for a six in the fifth over of the chase.

With the fixture played behind closed doors, far from the bustle of the Chinnaswamy, the acoustics felt almost exaggerated. 34 kilometres away from the iconic stadium, in the outskirts of the city, there was no crowd to absorb and ramp up the noise. Here every contact between bat and ball was heard, and off Kohli's bat it carried significance without an audience for it.

Kohli's big return to the city was denied all the bells and whistles owing to security concerns. He played Ranji Trophy in January this year in front of a 12,000-strong crowd in Delhi but that frenzy was cut off from what was his first List A match for Delhi since the NKP Salve Trophy final in September 2013.

But the intensity synonymous with this 37-year-old one-format India cricketer came through even in a fixture like this. It wasn't until around 1:30 pm that Kohli the batter came into his 50-over element. A handful of fans watched from the other side of a wall at one end of the stadium - adorned with barbed wires and far-removed from the action. All in the hope of getting a fleeting glimpse. Those who returned to their spots after lunch, got what they came for, albeit from afar.

For the first few hours of the game when Andhra batted, Kohli was deployed all around inside the 30-yard circle - putting in dives at cover and mid-on and later making saves at short third. He was also always part of the three-man conferences involving Rishabh Pant and the bowler.

He emerged with the bat in hand in the first over of the chase, and started off with a second-ball drive down the ground. Over the next 32 overs, the thwacking sound of ball hitting his bat became a noticeably loud and recurring feature of Delhi's chase.

The headline-grabbers of this opening day of the Vijay Hazare Trophy were mostly elsewhere - Vaibhav Suryavanshi broke records, a couple of incredible chases ensued and even Rohit Sharma made a six-laden return to the competition for the first time since 2018. Kohli hit just three off them but his 101-ball 131 had 14 fours, and more significantly, 39 singles.

Kohli built this innings like a true Kohli archetype - spinners were cut off the back foot, quicks dabbed down to third man. He even came away unscathed against his bugbear - left-arm spin, seeing off Saurabh Kumar through the middle.

For all of the discourse around 2027 ODI World Cup selection, it is true that the BCCI can kick that can down the road given the time still to go for the showpiece tournament. That said, questions that swirled of the capabilities after a couple of ODIs in Australia were quickly dissipated at home against South Africa. Kohli arrived in Bengaluru fresh from four statement knocks - 74* in Sydney, 135 in Ranchi, 102 in Raipur and 65* in Vizag.

By the end, there wasn't much else to glean from this 50-over outing against Andhra, except that Kohli continues to be in fine nick.

In the afterglow of the recent South Africa ODIs, Kohli had said: "I don't think I have played at this level for a good 2-3 years now, and I feel really free in my mind. Just the whole game is coming together nicely."

On a hot Wednesday afternoon, where he swapped India colours for the Delhi shade, and wild over flowing adulation for stretches of empty silence, it showed.