Inside out | Ajinkya Rahane shows character to own the MCG yet again

Ajinkya Rahane was the fifth man to go in the mayhem that the Australian bowlers had created on the third and final day of the Adelaide Test. While walking back to the pavilion on that occasion, thoughts about where does he go with the bat in the series and impact of another bad series overseas must have crossed his mind. Nevertheless, he was the vice-captain and was to lead the side as Virat Kohli’s tour was over after the first Test.

There was a sense of calamity after the debacle in Adelaide and, more worryingly for Rahane, he seemed like a part of the problem, not the solution, as India were staring at another gruelling contest that the Boxing Day Test looked like. His worries were deepened by the injury to Mohammed Shami as he could have been all the mainstay of the bowling attack. He was about to lead the depleted team in the next three Test matches against an Australian side who were smelling blood.

There were arguments about him taking the more aggressive option when on the field, as well as the injury to Shami, and Kohli’s inevitable return confronted him with a lot of dilemmas. He vindicated the experts and fans who were calling him an ‘aggressive captain’ by picking five bowlers, even at the expense of Wriddhiman Saha, who has been rated as the best gloveman in the country. He backed the duo of Rishabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja to come good while Hanuma Vihari was trusted to bind the innings together at the number five position. 

Rahane opted to promote himself, walking away from the subtle hints he had dropped in the tour games when Vihari was batting ahead of him in the batting order in a move that appeared like he were to replace Kohli at the number four position. All these moves even before the first ball was bowled justified the praise he has been getting for being an ‘aggressive captain.’

The day two of the game confronted him with yet another challenge as both Cheteshwar Pujara and Shubman Gill got dismissed fairly early in the day and he was back to the grind in the middle, after his short stay in the second innings of the Adelaide Test. 

There must have been dilemmas in his mind about approaching his innings against the on-fire pace trio of Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, and Josh Hazlewood, and to make the matter worse for him at the start of the innings, in his head, he also had to counter Nathan Lyon who has celebrated a good amount of success against him. 

It would have been tempting for him to attempt a counter-attacking start and see if he can survive through the early phase of belligerence, to settle down for a big one as the Australians threatened to not to allow any let-up in the bowling attack. This Australian attack goes relentlessly at batsmen and they don’t give away easy runs. Rahane would have well realised this fact in the first innings of the Adelaide Test when he and Virat Kohli were squeezed for runs by the Australian bowlers. 

Had he gone by the popular belief about him, he would have attacked the bowlers. But he looked circumspect and importantly, more decisive in his footwork than in his previous Test innings overseas. He was tested outside the off stump but he was not willing to take the bait and opened his account only on the 17th ball he faced, while his first boundary came off the 27th delivery. At least at the start of the innings, Rahane defied the popular belief about him knowing only an aggressive game when facing a tough challenge. He dared to wait for his moment rather than trying to create one and believed in his defence to combat whatever the raging bowling attack had to offer, that too for a period of their maximum perseverance.

His fortitude and reluctance to play expansive shots could have left India in a bubble, but Rishabh Pant came in handy for both him and India as his swashbuckling shots broke the flow of the game for Australia. When Pant departed, India were just 22 runs away from Australia's score, but Rahane looked in no hurry to bridge that gap, rather, he was batting in his zone and saw the bigger picture of having a substantive lead over Australia in his mind.

As the state of play approached towards the second new ball, Rahane was calm enough to confront yet another challenge as he was there in the middle when the new Kookaburra had wreaked havoc against him and his teammates in Adelaide on Day 1. There was no let-up this time though as his efforts of putting his head down in the initial phase of the innings started to pay off against the new ball.

Australians went desperate in search of wickets as the lead started growing and bowled deliveries in the absolute full zone to extract the maximum assistance off the pitch and in the air. Tim Paine would have hoped for a similar return to what Starc could offer in Adelaide, but Rahane had found his feet and was not sitting back in the crease.

Rahane showed his supremacy and showcased the zone of immense discipline he was batting in when Cummins lured him with really full deliveries in the 82nd over and Rahane was sublime in his riposte with nice strides down the pitch of the ball to time his trademark drive past mid-off. He forced Cummins to shorten his length and when the number one pacer in the world did oblige on the next ball, Rahane stood on his toes to send a signal to his dressing room that the version of him which was highly celebrated for stroke-making on tough pitches against quality pace attacks, was back in the reckoning.

When Rahane was batting in his prime, the off drives and punch through cover were the main weapons in his arsenal and he started to flourish again at the MCG, where he had dominated Mitchell Johnson when even Virat Kohli was rattled by the left-arm pacer. Rahane was also very unlucky in his heydays and got jaffas from bowlers to get dismissed in unfortunate manners. On the day when all was at stake for him and his team, God returned all those favours as Australians dropped catches, one after another.

When Cummins offered him width in the 88th over, he was quick to pounce on it and with that, reached a century he and his fans will always rejoice, given the plot, the backdrop, and the context of his career coming into this game. Hazlewood followed Cummins in the next over and bowled a full-length delivery to check if he had lost control in the euphoria of completing his 12th century. But Rahane was batting in sublime form, and his sumptuous drive of the ball through cover for four showed nothing that he is more hungry and yet to be finished in this innings.

Rahane answered all his critics and the questions of his place in the Indian team in the most characteristic way of his batting. He did that by leading his side well for the first two days of the second Test as well. One can be called a true leader only if they can sail their team out of a crisis. Fair to say, Rahane has passed on both accounts and if Australian batsmen continue their lacklustre form with the bat, he can also help India earn back the respect and chance to retain the Border-Gavaskar series in Melbourne.

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