Worrying pattern for Rahane the batsman, as Rahane the leader grows in reputation

That cricket is a great leveller must have been said for an uncountable number of times, and it is one of the most famous cliches of the game. For India’s Ajinkya Rahane, the cliche must have now become a matter of fact even before the memories of a historic triumph in Australia are yet to fade away from the minds of fans and experts.

He was hailed for making a second-string Indian team look like a bunch of legends who could dare to take down Australia Down Under, but now he finds himself in the ire of fans as India are battling hard on the fifth day of the first Test in Chennai.

The fortunes could not have been starker for Rahane who found himself in mid of storm that swept Indian team in both the innings.

On the fifth day of the Test, Rahane walked out to face an on-fire James Anderson who had just castled Shubman Gill, who, like in the recent past in his brief career, was playing like a dream. Rahane could not pick Anderson’s line of attack and his swing as the first ball he faced swung away from him, followed by sharp inswing ball towards his pad. 

He was caught rooted to the crease, but umpire Nitin Menon gifted him a reprieve. The DRS from England showed it was a marginal call and it could have gone either way. A grumpy Anderson made sure he did not need Menon’s help on the next ball to see the back of Rahane as he cut the Indian vice-captain into half and sent the stumps cartwheeling in a manner that left all including umpire Menon in a sense of awe.

In the first innings as well, Rahane walked into bat when the off-spinner Dominic Bess was in the middle of an excellent spell and had got the better of Kohli with a ball. Kohli's wicket delivery drew the Indian ace forward outside the line of off stump and induced an inside edge to short leg. There too he was caught napping and was playing from the crease, and it needed Pujara to remind him that the off-spinner was able to get some purchase off the pitch. 

On cue, Rahane tried to leave the crease in order to deny Bess with the chance of finding him trapped and poking in nervousness. He attempted to reach to the pitch of the ball in a classical manner as Indian greats used to play, but he committed the mistake of leaving his fortunes in the hand of Joe Root who could do no wrong in the game. His lofted drive found the English skipper at the cover and the innings was gone even before Rahane could settle down and make good choices. It was an unplayable pitch, and hence his eagerness to not allow Bess a look-in begged a question that if he trusts his game or not. And if one can’t trust his game on as flat a pitch as the Chepauk, there must be things working horribly wrong between his two ears.

In both the innings, he was dismissed as soon as he came onto the field, and to be fair to him, the benefit of the doubt can be given to India’s vice-captain. But, while the dismissals in both the innings in the first Test match can be attributed to bad luck and the brilliance of James Anderson, it’s not new for Rahane to be found wanting at the start of the innings. His tentativeness at the crease has affected him for the entire length of his career, more so on Indian pitches, barring few series, where he has looked like the batsmen he augured after the 2013-14 overseas cycle.

Rahane was the pinnacle of India’s batting in 2013-14 overseas and after piling up runs all across the world, the fans and he himself would have expected to make the most in his return to Indian conditions. But his numbers for some reasons started to dwindle after his much-anticipated return.

Ironically, it was the home series against England five years back that started the unravelling of Rahane, the prolific batsman, and there are no definite signs that suggest he is coming back to his pre-2016 form. To make the matter worse for him, his overseas numbers which people expected to get better on the second tour was disappointing and the right-hander could not quite manage to rediscover his mojo to put repetitively good performances like his captain Virat Kohli does.

He struggled in New Zealand, and the misery was deepening in England before he showed his brilliance with a sparkling 81 against a bowling line-up comprising  Anderson, Stuart Broad and Chris Woakes at Trent Bridge. The team management would have had a sigh of relief looking at him scoring runs through gorgeous drives through the offside, and they must have expected that the Rahane of old was back who will turn things around in the series. The period of joy was very short as he returned the scores of 11, 51, 0, 37 in the next four innings in the series which shows he did not make the great use of his hard-earned form. The series ended with him finding a bit of spark in the middle of average batting performances.

It has been a troubling pattern for Rahane in the recent past which is evident from his scores after the marvellous first-innings century in the Melbourne Test (Dec, 2020) against Australia. He battled hard and hard to earn a century and won India the game, but then failed to capitalise in the following Tests in Sydney and Brisbane. His scores in the following four innings post 27* in the MCG Test (2nd innings) read 22, 4, 27, and 24 and it re-affirms the narrative that he has now been reduced to a batsman, capable of producing brilliance once in a while, rather than owning a season or series after regaining batting form.

Coming back to the series in hand, what will disappoint him more is the fact that he had the pitch going in his favour on the third day against England, and there were no demons on the pitch to unsettle the mental aspect of his game. It was more a case of him trying to find demons and doing more than required to combat the threat only he could see coming.

The home series against South Africa in 2019 was the only series that saw him maintain his form and scoring a good chunk of runs one after another after a long time, but the first Test against England has once again landed him in a spot of bother.

What he achieved in Australia will never be forgotten, but that will not assure him of a place in Test XI and save him from facing the ire of fans as he will be the first one to ask himself some tough questions about his mindset and technique. Rahane the batsman needs to go big and let his bat do the talking to cement and justify all the plaudits Rahane got after the highs in Australia. Fans and experts called him the chief architect who turned things around for India after the historic low of 36 in Adelaide, and Rahane has the responsibility for both him and the team to establish that the century was not a fluke and that it was one of the many innings he is capable to play for India with the bat.

Make no mistake, he can come back stronger and put a big one in the second Test, but India need him more from him than just pieces of periodic brilliance and that only can justify the respect he gets from the team management.

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