Why Ajinkya Rahane stands out from his peers

Rahane was the only centurion in the India-SA Test series

For years’, Indians have been spoilt by the Fab 5 (Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman & Sourav Ganguly) of Indian batting. Runs from the bat of at least one of these 5 five was taken for granted. But as with most good things in life, the era of the fab 5 came to an end and we fans were left wondering that who would carry the torch of their legacy forward.

We saw our batsmen struggle on bouncy wickets in Australia, seaming wickets in England and more recently on spinner friendly wickets at home. Skipper Virat Kohli had shown qualities which convinced us that with him in charge the batting department of the Indian team was in safe hands. But as we have seen in the 1990s that dependence on one batsman always is never good for the team as a whole.

And with the shifting and changing in the batting order, we were scared that Kohli would be a lone man standing. Then came a soft-spoken batsman from the interiors of Maharashtra named Ajinkya Madhukar Rahane. He made his debut against the Australians at Kotla in 2013.

This was a forgettable outing for Rahane as he failed to reach double figures in either of the innings. But as they say “Don’t judge a book by its cover”, Rahane had much more in store than the scorecard of his debut match would suggest.

Calm and Composed at the crease

He is from the Bombay school of batting and signs are that he is ready to follow the footprints of the great Bombay batsmen of yesteryears. It is still early days in his career but the trailer looks promising. With his calm approach and text book batting, one is forced to exclaim – Do they really make them like him anymore?

His quiet celebration after scoring his second century of the match in the 4^th Test against South Africa at Delhi took us back to the era of the fab 5. There was no thumping of the chest nor running around the pitch. Neither was there a signal to the crowd or dressing room pointing towards the team India logo.

There was just a simple raising of the bat and acknowledgement of the applause of the crowd.

The great Sunil Gavaskar summed up his celebration perfectly when he said that this is how century celebrations should be. Gavaskar said that when one is wearing the team India jersey there is no need to point towards the logo and show it to the crowd.

Mind you the feat that Rahane had achieved after scoring back to back hundreds at Kotla was no mean feat. He joined the likes of Vijay Hazare, Sunil Gavaskar, Rahul Dravid & his skipper Virat Kohli to become only the 5th Indian to score a century in both the innings of a Test match (Sunil Gavaskar achieved this feat thrice and Rahul Dravid did it twice).

His performance in the Kotla test was not just a one-off performance. He has been a consistent performer in the otherwise shaky Indian middle order. In a short span of time he has test centuries in England, New Zealand, Australia and Srilanka.

So, he has another quality which the fab 5 possessed i.e. scoring runs outside India or rather more specifically outside the sub-continent.

Given the different nature of wickets offered outside India, we Indians respect batsman who have excelled on bouncy and seaming wickets. For instance, Rahane’s first Test century was in Wellington against the Kiwis and he also has a century at Lord’s, the Mecca of cricket.

And now in the ongoing Freedom series against South Africa, where no batsman from either sides has managed to reach the 3 digit figure he has scored two centuries in one Test. In fact his first innings score of 127 was 6 runs more than what the entire South African team managed to score. Surprisingly this was his first century in India.

Not just a Test-specialist

His batting approach might give one the impression that he is a Test-specialist, but you would be making this assumption at your own peril. Rahane is an equally accomplished one day batsman. His 60 ball 79 against the Proteas at Melbourne in the 2015 World Cup was testimony of this fact. He has shown that he can shift gears when required.

I would be honest in saying that since the retirement of the fab 5, it is Kohli’s & Rahane’s batting that has at most times given me a sense of comfort. But as we saw in the current freedom series even if Kohli is gone, Rahane is ready to grind it out in the middle.

He has the patience required to succeed at Test level and at the same time can score quickly when required. His team-mates might call him Jinks but we can rest assured that with him at the helm, Indian batting will never be jinxed.