Ajinkya Rahane: A promising talent

My School, S. V. Joshi High School, required 50+ runs and Ajinkya Rahane was occupying the crease with the 11th batsman. The final wicket and the illustrious (Paladhe Chashak) trophy is up for grabs for the opponent team (I believe it's Tilak Nagar school# but not sure... but if yes...hahaha). Everybody thought the match is all over but Ajinkya Rahane had different ideas. He just did not allow the 11th batsman to face the bowlers at all, shrewdly taking singles on the last ball of every over, he scored all the runs himself and snatched the game literally from opponent's jaws. The man of the match and tournament was obviously none other than Ajinkya Rahane.

"The signs of greatness are demonstrated in ones childhood", Anonymous and I was reminded of this every time I heard about this chap during each and every visit to Dombivli (or Bombay). Watching him during the last IPL game where he scored unbeaten 62 of 49 balls at No. 3 position against Bangalore Royal Challengers was exciting too. Meanwhile, Rahane has been scaling new heights, playing for Bombay*, India U19 and now a part of Mumbai Indians in the IPL as well.

Rahane's record http://content.cricinfo.com/ipl2009/content/player/277916.html in the first class reads 2550 runs in 43 innings (25 matches) at an average of an impressive 63.75. He is one of the only 11 players to have scored more than 1000 runs in a single Ranji Trophy season. stupendous Indeed!!! With such performances, he is already knocking the doors of Indian cricket team for a while now and I guess he is one of the strong contenders (along with Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma, S Badrinath, Manoj Tewari and Yousef Pathan) to be an ideal replacement for Dravid, Laxman and Sachin. To my limited knowledge and expertize, Suresh Raina would be more suitable as a replacement for Very Very Special Laxman and Yuvraj or Rohit Sharma are a good choice to replace Sachin at No. 4. Ajinkya Rahane/Rohit Sharma/S Badrinath would be fighting for the most critical No. 3 position. Trying Yousuf Pathan at the late middle order in the test team would be an exciting prospect as well.

Then, Indian test batting line up would look like:

1. Sehwag
2. Gambhir
3. Rahane/Rohit Sharma/S Badrinath
4. Yuvraj/Rohit Sharma -- Youraj still needs to prove himself abroad in Tests. So, the place is not certain
5. Suresh Raina/Yousef Pathan/Manoj Tewari (Pick or 1/3 or 2/3 based on you want to play 5 bowlers or 4 bowlers)
6. MS Dhoni

I think it's an exciting time for Indian cricket with so many choices around. I hope Dhoni would be able to build a formidable side comparable to invincible West Indies in the 70s or Australians in the late 90s.

Rahane though still has his task cut out to make his mark amongst the best in the business. If he does so, it would make all of us Dombivlikars (yeah I still think myself as one) very very proud...
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# I am requesting the former captain of Tilak Nagar School, Shashank Desai alias Ballu to throw light on the story.

* Sunny Gavaskar in Sunny Days says it gave him as much satisfaction and pride when playing for Bombay as he derived from playing for India. In those days, most of the Bombay batting lineup was part of Indian batting lineup.