A journey from despair to joy for Ajinkya Rahane

MUMBAI: On March 24 at the Ferozeshah Kotla in Delhi last year, the Team India dressing room was a party zone, with the players celebrating a 4-0 Test rout of Australia like there was no tomorrow.
Amongst them was a 25-year-old who was trying his best to put on a 'fake' smile. In a happy atmosphere, he had reason to feel bad.
After waiting for some years to wear a Test cap for India and piling up the runs in first class cricket for Mumbai, Ajinkya Rahane had wasted his debut -getting out for seven & one.
More than the scores, it was his dismissal in the second innings, when he lost his wicket while playing a risky shot with India chasing a low but tricky total, that drew the critics' ire.
Having already lost his ODI spot a couple of months back by succumbing to England pacer Steven Finn's incoming deliveries, Rahane was staring into an abyss.
Then, just as he was slipping into depression, he received a phone call that changed his career.
"Normally, players ask me to train them personally. In his case, I knew that he would be hesitant to do that, so I myself called him. Maybe, since he is a fellow Mumbaikar, I was too hurt to see him fail. I too had gone through a similar stage in my career. I wanted him to bounce back," Mumbai Ranji coach Pravin Amre told TOI on Wednesday.
Amre's first task was lifting Rahane's spirits. "You know, he is not a bindaas guy. Criticism hurts him," Amre said.
"I took him to a friend of mine - Abhay Poyarekar. He was a customs officer who had won a bravery award from the President of India," the former India batsman recalled.
Poyarekar had received plenty of threats as well as bribery offers from the underworld after he averted a major bomb blast in Mumbai by seizing 18 detonators from a ship at Mumbai docks.
Poyarekar's spine-chilling tale despite such a massive danger inspired Rahane no end. "I also took him to the founder of the Vedanta Group, Swami Parthasarathy for a session on mental health. Since he has failed to deliver, he was feeling low and disturbed," Amre revealed.
The next task was sorting out the 'technical issues' that had crept into his batting.
"I had to work on his bat swing, which was slightly faulty at that time. With India set to play abroad for the next two years, I had to prepare him accordingly, and he worked hard," Amre says.
"For every tour, I prepared him differently. With South Africa and New Zealand, it was about negotiating bounce. Before the England tour, the focus was on coping with swing," Amre said.
The results show how successful the method has been. In between, there was his limited overs game to sort out too.
Luckily for him, Rahane preferred the chance of starting in the first XI in the Rajasthan Royals to warming the benches of the Mumbai Indians in the IPL.
"As an opener for the Royals, he proved those wrong who say he wasn't cut out for slam-bang cricket. Once you have a tight technique, strokes and temperament like him, you can play any format of the game," Amre says.
Of course, Rahul Dravid's mentoring at the Royals helped Rahane's game blossom too. "Dravid was his childhood idol. It was the best thing to happen to him," says Amre.
What makes Rahane succeed outside India, at least so far? The youngster has 670 runs in nine Tests at 44.66, including two hundreds and four fifties, against some of the best attacks in the game. It can't be about his fabulous technique alone.
"His commitment to the game is next to none," says Amre before illustrating his point.
"Before he went to England, we had an eight-day camp at BKC in Mumbai. His birthday (June 5) fell during that period. He could have asked me for a 'break' on that day and gone home. He didn't. I had to order a cake for him at the nets itself," Amre reveals.
Clearly, dedication has much to do with Rahane's success story.
On Tuesday, Amre was twitching his fingers nervously even as his 'student' was smashing the England attack to pulp in the fourth ODI on way to his maiden ODI hundred.
"With the World Cup approaching, there is so much competition for places. He needed a knock like that. This was the challenge when we started out - to make him perform abroad," says Amre.
Amre feels Rahane must open regularly in ODIs now. "During his last knock, he showed the ideal approach an opener needs to have. He hardly scored anything in the first four overs, before unleashing himself on James Anderson. He got back at Finn too. And the best part was he was playing classical strokes, and hitting sixes too," Amre observed.
Before India went to England, all the talk was centered around Virat Kohli and Cheshwar Pujara. No one seemed to be expecting much from Rahane.
However, after his match-winning Test hundred at Lord's and then a series-deciding ton in the Birmingham ODI, it can safely be said that 'Ajju' has been India's best batsman on this tour. He has emerged, somewhat, as a man for all seasons. Someone who can bat at several positions and in various formats.
That gloomy evening at Kotla must now be a thing of past for Rahane.