Shamik Chakrabarty in Mumbai
Steel is what separates the achievers and the also-rans. It is called khadoos in the Mumbai maidans. On Saturday in Sydney, Rohit Sharma channelled his inner Shivaji Park khadoos to score a match-winning hundred for India. At Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) here in Mumbai, Ajinkya Rahane revelled in it, as he scored an unbeaten 118 to get the hosts out of the woods against Chhattisgarh. Old is still gold.
Rohit went to Australia with the narrative — perform or perish. He is returning with the Player of the Series award. Through his 73 in Adelaide and 121 not out in Sydney, the message was loud and clear — ‘drop me if you can’.
The context and the stage were different in Rahane’s case. A Ranji Trophy match against Chhattisgarh doesn’t have the glamour and hullabaloo of international cricket. But there were outside noises as regards Rahane continuing as a player in the Mumbai team. International cricket has seemingly passed him by and the murmurs, in favour of giving youth a chance, grew louder after his four-ball duck in the first match against Jammu and Kashmir.
Like Rohit, Rahane, too, kept a calm, rather jovial, exterior. On the match eve, when he was chatting with a group of reporters who turned up to cover Mumbai’s practice, there were no signs of pressure. Deep inside, though, like his long-time teammate and friend, he was preparing his response. The never-say-die attitude was the common thread that tied the two Mumbaikars. If Rohit’s celebration after reaching his hundred was muted, Rahane’s was exaggerated.
Mumbai slumped to 38/3 after being sent in. Shot selection from the top-order, Musheer Khan to be precise, wasn’t judicious. The ball does a bit in the first session at BKC. Rahane and the team’s ‘crisis man’, Siddhesh Lad, showed the youngsters the value of respecting the conditions in red-ball cricket.
The two stitched a 165-run partnership for the fourth wicket before Lad got out for 80. Rahane was on 118 off 237 balls, when cramps got the better of him, as he retired hurt. He will bat tomorrow. More importantly, right from the outset, it felt like the 37-year-old was in the process of rolling back the years.
Lad said as much after the day’s play. “Right from the start, he (Rahane) was in a different zone,” the senior batter told reporters. “So, it felt like he would do something today. And it was 34/3 (38/3), a senior player was needed to take the responsibility. It felt like the old Ajinkya Rahane was visible today — the grit and the determination.”
Response was awaited from another player on the heels of his India A snub. Mumbai captain Shardul Thakur had said at the pre-match press conference that Sarfaraz Khan didn’t need India A to get into the Test side, as runs in Ranji Trophy would take him there. The middle-order bat fell prey to the left-arm spin of Aditya Sarwate for one. Mumbai finished the day on 251/5.
Brief scores: Mumbai 251/5 (Ajinkya Rahane 118 retired hurt, Siddhesh Lad 80; Ravi Kiran 2/22) vs Chhattisgarh.
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