Much has been said about the curious role of Ajinkya Rahane in the current Indian team. He is one of the most dependable batsmen in the country, and is an automatic choice in the longer formats of the game. His hitting power, however, pales in comparison in the age of T20 specialists like Hardik Pandya, the new breed of cricketers.
Rahane’s game makes sure that he never reaches the heights of stardom heaped upon the likes of Virat Kohli, and he has to score most of his runs maintaining a low profile, most often playing second fiddle to a more attacking partner.
Even in this new breed of hard-hitting cricketers, there are those few individuals who still give priority to correctness of technique over strength of arm and backlift. One such batsman in India’s U19 team is Armaan Jaffer, nephew to former India cricketer Wasim Jaffer, and a steady accumulator of runs at the junior level.
This is what Rahane had to say about Armaan:
Arman, though still only 17, has already represented Mumbai’s U-23 team, and got called up to the U19 World Cup recently.
Even in the World Cup in Bangladesh, Armaan never grabbed any headlines, despite chipping in with useful contributions lower down the order – with scores of 46, 12*, 64, 29 and 5. The major newsmakers from the young guns were Sarfaraz Khan and Rishabh Pant, whose array of shots are of the more destructive kind.
Someone like Rahane is required in a team to lend balance, and perhaps some day Armaan will play the role in the Indian team which he plays now – the hard worker who builds, in a team of destructive champions.
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