Ajinkya Rahane: Proving cricket is still a gentleman’s game

On a Tuesday night in Mumbai, Ajinkya Rahane proved that when all is done and dusted at the end of the day, cricket is still a gentleman’s game. The incident took place on the last ball of the 19th over of the Mumbai innings. The match was going away from the Mumbai Indians with them needing 36 with 7 balls to go. Jaydev Unadkat was given the responsibility of bowling the penultimate over.

He bowled a slow off cutter which was well picked up by Mitchell Mccleneghan who heaved it towards long on. Rahane caught the ball and lobbed it to Steven Smith before going over the boundary. However, almost immediately, before even getting off the ground, Rahane signalled to the umpire that it was a six indicating that his feet had touched the ropes.

The umpires signalled to the third umpire to get a confirmation but gave the soft signal as out. Replays indicated that Rahane had touched the rope with his feet before he passed the ball to Smith. The third umpire declared it as a six. Apart from Rahane’s classiness on the field, his batting prowess was on show in the first innings as he scored a well-crafted half century creating the foundation for Manoj Tiwary and MS Dhoni to come and build on it to take the Supergiant to a solid 162 on a pitch which played slow for most part of the game.

The total proved enough in the end as the Supergiant won by 20 runs booking their seat in the finals of this year’s IPL. In the fast paced world revolving around Twenty20 cricket, it would be easy to get caught up in the game amidst the flashiness. Acts like Rahane’s proved that one can still play hard and competitive cricket without compromising on the values of the game, be it for a fair play award or setting an example for the budding generation.

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– Written by Gokul Narayanan