Rachin Ravindra is special, and the latest Kiwi surprise at a World Cup 

October 5, 2023, Narendra Modi Stadium, it is the first game of the World Cup – the sort of occasion that is meant to test the best of them, let alone someone like Rachin Ravindra, who might not have been on the flight to India altogether had Michael Bracewell, an off-spinner who bats left-handed and can hit a long ball, been fit.

Ravindra, for context, has batted just eight times in ODIs previously, averaging a little more than 23 and having scored less than 200 runs. He is all of 23 years old, and here he is, putting on his helmet, adjusting his gloves, and soaking in the occasion as he walks out to bat.

New Zealand, by the way, are in early strife, having lost Will Young for a duck. This game is also against defending champions England. Sam Curran has already picked up a wicket and can swing the ball beautifully. Mark Wood can crank it up, and Chris Woakes is perhaps one of the most underrated white-ball bowlers of this generation. Adil Rashid and Moeen Ali can get the ball to bite off the surface too, especially if the track plays like it did in England’s innings.

Most individuals, most teams, on most days, would have gotten overawed and would have been consumed by the occasion, the expectations, and the pressure. Not Rachin Ravindra. Not New Zealand. Not at the World Cup.

Rachin Ravindra looked at home on his World Cup debut

That point can be driven home by just watching Wood’s first over. The third ball of the over pitches on a back of a length, and is meant to hurry the batter, both in his decision-making and in his stroke play. Instead, Ravindra just lays back, gets up on his toes, and punches it confidently between point and cover point.

It does not hurtle away to the fence, but the confidence to play with a straight bat, trust his technique, and back himself to be good enough against one of the best in the world, highlights why this young lad is special.

A couple of balls later, he carts Wood over the deep square-leg fence, showing just as much courage and bravery, as skill and dexterity. The last ball of the over is then caressed more forcefully through the off-side ring. Wood ends up conceding 17, and England, even before the powerplay has finished, have been creamed out of the contest.

Thereafter, Ravindra put on a clinic, smashing the bowlers to all parts, while playing proper cricketing strokes. Some of the sixes he hit, especially the one that left Woakes dumbfounded in the 23rd over, were a thing of beauty. Not because of how far they went, or how often they came about, but just because of how natural and free-flowing it all seemed.

At no point did he seem rushed. Everything came to him very easily, almost languidly, and that is what probably set him apart – the time that he had to play his strokes.

This is, if you might have somehow missed, a very old adage in cricket. The best players, it is always said, have more time than others. Of course, that is not scientifically possible. What it means, though, is that certain batters pick the length earlier than others, and they then have more time to create a response – as Wood found out in his first over.

Ravindra, understandably, is not a part of the ‘best players at the World Cup’ conversation yet. In fact, if New Zealand do not want to drop Will Young, the 23-year-old might be the one to miss out when Kane Williamson returns.

But such World Cup showings, that too when the pressure was firmly on, and when things could have turned pear-shaped, highlight his quality, character, and just how special he is, even at this early stage.

If he can come through such situations unscathed, there might not be many circumstances that would faze him. And that is what New Zealand banked on, and that is what they were rewarded for. That he had a smile, an almost sheepish one, after reaching his hundred, on World Cup debut no less, is quite revealing too.

Funnily enough, this is not the first time the Kiwis have done something of this sort. Over the last few years, they have always entered ICC white-ball events with some surprise up their sleeves. At the 2019 edition, they found a solid opening batter in Henry Nicholls to complement Martin Guptill.

At the 2021 T20 World Cup, Daryl Mitchell was unfurled as an opener, and he had a magnificent tournament. His magnum opus? Well, a sublime half-century to knock England out at the penultimate stage.

A year later, Finn Allen was drafted into the opening slot alongside Devon Conway, while Mitchell batted lower. Allen blasted Australia out of the game and set the scene, both for the Kiwis’ semi-final march and the Australians’ elimination on home soil.

In 2015, Brendon McCullum turbocharged the Blackcaps' campaign, encouraging his players to play a fearless brand of cricket that almost every international side on the planet wants to preach nowadays. Go as far back as 1992, and it was Mark Greatbach, who produced a string of revolutionary strokes.

This Ravindra masterclass, thus, is the latest in the line of Kiwi surprises at the World Cup. They almost always arrive with little fanfare but by the time they finish a game or two, they capture the imagination of those watching.

2023 does not seem any different. Ravindra strode out, absorbed all the pressure, and smirked at those wondering if New Zealand had enough firepower to leave an impression. He crafted his own identity across two and a bit hours, and while the story of him being named after Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar will eventually crop up (because, hello, social media, duh), he now has a World Cup fable all his own - where Rachin Ravindra is front, center, protagonist et al.

To think that he might not have been here at all, had everyone been fit...Well, the Blackcaps, had that happened, would have certainly missed him. Anyone who watched him bat on Thursday would have been shorn of an incredible display of stroke-making too.

And if those two sentences, in conjunction, do not explain the relationship New Zealand have with World Cups, and the relationship Ravindra might have with cricket-watching purists moving forward, nothing ever will.