Ajinkya Rahane, the quiet riot

By Chetan Narula
In the first Test against New Zealand at Auckland earlier this year, India were battling to avoid the follow-on. Ajinkya Rahane and Rohit Sharma were at the crease as Day 3 began. India would lose this match in two day with Rahane’s dismissal the turning point. Facing only his 14th delivery of the morning, he played at a delivery he should have left alone. He was caught at first slip.

It was a tough loss to digest. India had come within 40 runs of their first overseas Test victory since 2011. That partnership could have changed everything. Instead, India were down 1-0.

In the next Test at Wellington, Rahane assimilated what he learnt from the disappointing dismissal at Auckland and went on to score his maiden Test ton on a green-wicket. Not too many things match an overseas Test century when you’re a 25-year-old Indian batsman hungry to make a mark. Perhaps, the only one that tops it is getting a hundred in your first Test at Lord’s, on a lushgreen pitch. Rahane did it last week.

“I was very nervous the night before the match,” said the now 26-year-old after the 103 in the first innings at Lord’s. “But I calmed down in the morning realising that all I needed to do was bat patiently for a little time, face 25-30 deliveries then see how it will go.”

The first 30 balls he faced yielded 13 runs. There were only two boundaries and another four scoring shots. He had left 24 deliveries alone. In Wellington, on the other hand, the first 30 balls had brought him 20 runs, including four boundaries. Clearly the onus has been on leaving as many deliveries as possible, a now familiar trait of this young Indian batting line-up since they started touring in December 2013.

In Wellington, the pitch flattened after day two and the match fizzled out to a draw. Lord’s was definitely a tougher pitch when considering how it played out over the five days. “It was a completely different wicket. I tried to play as close to my body as possible. Only after first 25-35 runs, I started taking my chances,” said Rahane.

Why did he need to change gears? This is where a second comparative point sets in. At Durban, where he scored a valiant 96 runs and excruciatingly missed out on a deserved maiden Test hundred, he had put on 35 runs with Zaheer Khan for the 8th wicket, 17 with Ishant Sharma for the 9th and another 17 with Moahammad Shami for the 10th wicket, in a bid to save the match.

“There is no chance that Rahane has previously played on a green wicket like this [Lord’s],” says former England off-spinner Graeme Swann. “And yet the manner in which he batted forced Alastair Cook to make some strange strategic calls. Rahane forced those errors from England with his brilliant batting. For me, he was the clear man of the match ahead of Ishant Sharma.”

Since Sourav Ganguly vacated the No 6 spot in 2008, quite a few names— most prominently Suresh Raina and Yuvraj Singh—tried the role. None succeeded. Where they failed, Rahane has succeeded. Why?

“The advantage Rahane has batting in the middle order in Tests is that he batted at the top in domestic cricket all his life. So he knows how to tackle the new ball and this has played to his strength since he has had to face the second new ball when batting at No 5 or 6,” says his batting coach and mentor Pravin Amre. “It is not easy to score runs consistently. Only the best Indian batsmen have succeeded in these countries and in doing so Rahane has sealed his Test spot.”

In the aftermath of only India’s second Lord’s victory, Rahane’s show in the Indian first innings was pushed to the background. Ishant Sharma’s spectacular bowling spell—and England’s equally spectacular collapse— became the talk of the town. His knock was, perhaps, even overshadowed by Murali Vijay’s 247-ball 95-run effort in the second innings.

Knowing his quiet demeanour though, Rahane won’t mind in the least. After all, with 535 runs in 6 Tests (avg. 53.50) in South Africa, New Zealand and England across the last eight months, he has filled Ganguly’s spot without much fuss.