He was a part of the Under-19 Indian team then, and former Indian captain Sunil Gavaskar had predicted in an award functions in Bangalore that Ambati Rayudu would make it big one day.
The 30-year old middle-order batsman may have lost a few of his prime days while playing the unrecognized Indian Cricket League and was duly blacklisted by the BCCI, but with time, he fought back with conviction.
He scored runs at the domestic level and was rightly picked to represent India at the highest level. There was a lot of criticism during the last Bangladesh ODI series when ODI captain MS Dhoni picked Rayudu ahead of Ajinkya Rahane, who generally struggles to rotate the strike on slower tracks.
Without knowing who is capable of doing what, the pundits of the game accused Dhoni of deliberately dropping Rahane and even politicised this change in the playing XI.
But at the Harare Sports Club on Friday, it was because of Rayudu, India could salvage some pride after losing five wickets at a score of 87 within 25th over. It was the sixth wicket partnership of 160 runs from 24.3 overs between Rayudu and Stuart Binny that rescued India.
Rayudu came into the crease in the fourth over itself after India lost Murali Vijay early and a shared a 51-run stand with the make-shift ODI captain Rahane (34 off 49 balls).
Thereafter, none of the Indian middle-order could counter the disciplined Zimbabwe bowlers, who maintained immaculate line and length. Starting from Manoj Tiwary, Robin Uthappa to Kedar Jadhav – all of them crumbled under the pressure.
But it was Rayudu who held his ground in the middle till the 50th over of the Indian innings. He remained not out at 124 off 133 balls (12 four and 1 six).
Another Dhoni’s recruit besides Rayudu and Rahane, Binny showed tremendous maturity against an attack, which wasn’t easy to dominate. His 77 off 76 balls will stand him in good stead, but will do a world of good to his confidence level in future.
It remains to be seen how the rest of the bench make use of the opportunity in next two ODI matches. So what if the likes of Vijay, Tiwary and Uthappa are a part of the second-string side? They have played under Dhoni at some point and have come out with flying colours.
