58 12 FEBRuaRy 2018seconds convincing him that it was indeed okay. and that he was
by no means doing anything wrong. “ajinkya is so docile that I
had to almost drag him inside,” says Lele. “He is one of those rare
cricketers who is a human being first, and a very shy one at that.”
In many ways, rahane is a misfit in an Indian team that cele-
brates off-field machismo as much as it does on-field performances.
rahane neither has the muscles nor the tattoos. He doesn’t have a
designer hairdo and the edges of his moustache are curved, not
twirled. when he exits the team bus, he flashes an old-school
smile at the waiting cameras, even as his teammates rattle their
wrists—with thumb and little finger sticking out—in some new-
age greeting. a story goes that even after he had become an interna-
tional cricketer—and well before he got married—and had earned
enough money to yank his family out of lower middle-class obscu-
rity, rahane continued to receive ‘pocket money’ from his father.
“even after he became a big star and all of that, he has re-
mained a sadhu,” says Lele. “but what amazes me most is how this
small-in-ego, small-in-size, submissive and shy sadhu transforms
instantly into a shaitaan (demon) when he has a cricket bat in his
hand. every time, it simply amazes me.”
for the first two Test matches of India’s much-awaited tour of
south africa, that shaitaan wasn’t unleashed. rahane, vice-captain
of the Indian team and the country’s best batsman in tricky over-
seas conditions in the past, was left out of Virat Kohli’s playing
eleven due to a most controversial selection procedure of picking
players on recent form.
rohit sharma, who had stuffed himself sick with runs against
the visiting sri Lankans on India’s batting-friendly wickets in
odIs and T20Is, made the cut ahead of rahane, who, it must be
said, was woefully out of form, and India promptly lost both these
Test matches, in Cape Town and Centurion, mainly due to their
middle-order’s inability to bat on such spicy wickets. rahane’s
nickname isn’t ‘Jinx’ without reason.
Kohli was, of course, questioned by the travelling press (on ro-
hit’s presence, on rahane’s absence and on rohit’s presence caus-
ing rahane’s absence) after the series-loss in Centurion and it will
be fair to say that he didn’t find it to his liking one bit. “you tell me
what is our best eleven?” he shot back at an Indian reporter when
asked if he had failed to play India’s best
team and also snapped at a south african
journalist by saying he was here “to answer
questions and not to fight”. Now, whether
Kohli left rahane out simply based on form
or personal reasons, we will never know, but
the word from the Indian camp was that
rahane, in the nets before each of the first
two Test matches, was throwing his hands
at the ball and not playing it—a telltale sign
of a batsman out of touch.
Perhaps because the Johannesburg
match was a dead rubber or perhaps be-
cause of media pressure, or even due to a
combination of the two factors, rahane was
included in the playing eleven (in place of
rohit sharma) and it is no coincidence that India promptly won.
on the toughest pitch of the tour and on the toughest day to bat
on—so tough that the umpires and the officials nearly called off
the Test in the fear that the batsman could get fatally hurt—ra-
hane top scored for India in the second innings, taming his emo-
tions and the brutal conditions.
In stark contrast to his demeanour outside Mandela’s house
a few days ago, rahane was shy no more. His middle-order
essay was the single biggest difference between the two sides. on
a wicket where most batsmen struggled to put bat on ball, rahane
dealt with the best pace attack in the world with ease, almost like
he was playing backyard cricket in Mulund. In rahane’s world
of mild manners, this was akin to showing off.O
ff THe PeNuLTIMaTe ball before lunch on day
Three of the wanderers Test, India’s opener Murali Vijay
was bowled by the fastest bowler in the world, Kagiso rabada.
rabada bowled the ball full and straight in Vijay’s blockhole and
even before he could get his bat down, the stumps had been rear-
ranged. Vijay’s mode of dismissal, getting yorked, had nothing to
do with the pitch and the crack that was developing on it; but both
the pitch and the crack had bruised and softened Vijay enough
right through the first session of play that he almost seemed glad
that he was out without further injuring himself.
as Vijay walked up the wanderers tunnel, the umpires de-
cided to break for lunch. so a fully geared-up rahane spent the
next 40 minutes staring at the pitch from the patio of the visitors’
dressing room. we know this because at the press conference
that was held at the end of the day, rahane said so himself. “I was
visualising when I was sitting in the dressing room,” rahane said.
“I was thinking what my approach was going to be because only
survival was not the point on this wicket.” It wasn’t.
at lunch on the third day (before rahane would walk out to
bat) of this seesawing final Test, India were 100/4 in their target
setting innings, leading by 93. on a pitch where no team had
breached 200 in their first innings (India were bowled out 187
and south africa for 194), rahane believed that his side was still
80 runs away from posting a decent target
for the south africans. and 80 more runs
on this pitch was like scoring three times
as much on a normal wicket. such was the
difficulty level.
“I was thinking if we get 170-180 then
that will be a good total on this track,”
rahane said. “I was actually thinking from
last night what my important shots on this
wicket are and how to get aggressive with
my batting because I wanted to put south
africa on the backfoot; they were dominat-
ing too much with their bowling.”
wanting to put the best pace attack on
the backfoot on a pitch rahane later claimed
to be the “most challenging of my life” iscricket
on thE toughEst
pitch oF thE touR
and thE haRdE st
day to Bat on,
RahanE dE alt with
th E BEst pacE
attack in thE
woRld with EasE,
as i F it was
BackyaRd cRickEt