Ajinkya Rahane was dismissed in the last World Test Championship final playing a paddle pull so soporific that I am surprised the fielder completed the catch.
Ofcourse, Rahane is not exactly the only person to ever go out to Neil Wagner bowling a short ball. There were at least four, maybe five, fielders placed for a mistake like this. And there were probably more, the legside is essentially Wagner’s slip cordon.
Also, this was the top score by an Indian in this match. But who cares if you can’t pass 50 or win?
In the second innings, he got a touch on a rare wayward ball from Trent Boult. He looked solid in this match and found two ways to get out that were not regulation.
The problem with Rahane is that you always have to look beyond the obvious with him. Nothing is ever easy.
For instance, he made 89, not a hundred. It was a tough, gutsy knock, but all it did was taken India from a completely unwinnable position to a still really bloody unlikely to be victorious position. And if India did somehow win, it would have been on the back of someone else doing something even more impressive. Even when Rahane wins, he doesn’t actually win.
It is hard being an Indian cricketer. You are no longer allowed to eat after being dismissed in a Test match for instance.
Rahane was certainly the whipping boy for a long time with Ishant Sharma retiring from that position to be the comeback king. It would have been lost on most cricket fans that Ishant struggled in an era where it was tough to bowl, and Rahane when it was tough for batting. Instead, Ishant was terrible, and Rahane was keeping out younger, better players.
If you look at Rahane’s record, he was still averaging 48 in the middle of 2017, that was exactly when the pace pandemic starts. And then after that, it’s been rough. That is fine for us, but most people don’t look this way. So they just say Rahane had been terrible.
There is something else worth thinking about, where Rahane makes his runs. This is all the Indian players with more than 1500 runs on the road. The only player with better records than him from his era is Virat Kohli. This is what Rahane was in the team for.
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