For an eternity, Sachin Baby stood frozen on his bent knee. His batting ally Jalaj Saxena let out a shriek in anger so loud that it could have been heard as far as the Wardha Road. But Sachin was too shocked to even scream or shout or curse himself, or to move from his crouched follow-through. He had just played the stroke that could define his career, self-destroying a knock that could have defined his life. Two runs away from his hundred, 56 runs away from snatching lead in the Ranji final, half his batting colleagues dismissed, he fatally slog-swept Parth Rekhade to deep mid-wicket. It was his lone moment of indiscretion in an innings that lasted 235 balls, where he was the wall of resistance and the fountain of hope that kept Kerala in the game and dragged them to the promised land. It was the exact second the game took a decisive shift towards Kerala. Psychologically battered, they were shot out for 342 runs, the visitors losing the last four wickets for 18 …