India is blessed to have a batsman like Ajinkya Rahane in its ranks. The calm and composed cricketer is a typical Mumbaikar, who prefers to mind his own business. He doesn’t like being aggressive like his teammate, Virat Kohli.
He is one of those guys who quietly enter the office, finish their work without a fluster, share a light moment with colleagues, and never seek attention. The likes of Rahane are style icons, and this one is a mix of Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid.
That’s not surprising. This Mumbai wallah is from the city that gave birth to Tendulkar, and made a name for himself in an IPL team which was captained by Dravid. With subtle virtues of two greats like Tendulkar and Dravid, Rahane has got to be a special cricketer. And he really is all that.
While he may not be as talented as his state-mate cum team-mate Rohit Sharma, he definitely has the ability to give more of an output than the ones who are currently representing India from Mumbai at the highest level.
On the final day of the Sydney Test match, when Rahane stayed standing till the end to seize then day for India by forcing a draw against Australia, it didn’t come as a surprise. The fact that he could play like this was evident from the time he started playing international cricket.
Though it took time for his critics to appreciate this, they finally recognised great things are in store for this 26-year old cricketer, who is here to stay.
Way back in 2011 when India were touring England, and a few of the stars of the team had left for home because of exceptional circumstances, Krish Srikkanth and his team had picked Rahane for a T20 match and five-match ODI series in the opener’s slot.
Rahane was new to everything associated with the Indian cricket team. This included his numbered jersey, the dressing room atmosphere and people inside it, to even the stage where he was supposed to begin his first day first show.
Rahane had just come into the team with a tag of being the run-machine in domestic cricket. His international run log started with a boundary off an England pacer. He struck a back-of-length ball intimidatingly over cover-point region.
Such was the first makings of Rahane, the international cricketer. Later in the ODI series, he kept getting starts and would get out just when the time was right to build on a big innings after the initial hard work was done.
Such a practice one times too many was giving him something of a reputation of succumbing too soon. He was taken to be a batsman who couldn’t go beyond the 30s and 40s. Soon, he was ‘in and out’ of the Indian ODI team on several occasions. But Rahane kept growing in stature under the aegis of Dravid in his IPL team.
Even his Test debut was very ordinary. This was the series where India blanked Australian at home 4-0. By the time Rahane was ready to be regular in the Test team, he couldn’t get picked as there wasn’t a vacant slot.
He had to wait till November 2013 – which saw the bowing-out of Tendulkar from Test cricket. . The New Zealand tour got underway and Rahane was able to take his rightful place as a prominent Test player, even in the Indian dressing room.
The England series, which followed later in 2014, instilled confidence in him and by the time he was touring Down Under, he was ready as a cricketer to take on the bogeymen.
Now Rahane may be only 16 Test matches old, and is the sixth highest scorer in the just concluded Test series against Australia, but he is the most important player for India in all formats after Virat Kohli.
And what Rahane does from here in the ODI team, which has MS Dhoni as captain, and a deputy in Kohli, may give fans of cricket so many more reasons to smile!
