Happy Birthday Indian Cricket’s New Mr Consistent – Ajinkya Rahane

Happy Birthday Indian Cricket’s New Mr. Consistent – Ajinkya Rahane: He is not an aggressive batsman like Virat Kohli, nor is he a hard-hitter of the cricket ball like Rohit Sharma. Ajinka Rahane has a style of his own in his batting. He is a perfect blend of sound technique, defense and has the perfect temperament needed for the game. He has been a prolific run scorer in the recent times in all the formats of the game and he is surely the man of the moment for Indian cricket. His fluency in batting validates the tags of class and consistency associated to his name.

Born in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra, Rahane represents Mumbai in domestic cricket. Right from his early days, he showed signs of perfection in his batting and always possessed the hunger to score bountiful runs. Rahane notched up two centuries when India under-19 team toured New Zealand in 2007. In his second Ranji Trophy season itself in 2008-2009, the Mumbai batsman impressed everyone with his batting. The right handed batsman amassed 1089 runs which became instrumental in Mumbai’s victory.

His flurry of runs in the domestic cricket rightly earned him a berth in Indian ODI squad for 2011 NatWest series in England. Rahane opened the innings for India in the series and scored some decent runs. Though his initial performances were not too loud, he impressed many with his fearless batting approach and fluency in his strokes. A shift in the batting position in ODIs has no effect on his batting form. Ajinkya has showed signs of continuous improvement in ODI cricket and has registered 2 centuries and 9 fifties in 53 innings he played for India.

Rahane’s struggling form in ODIs during those times made him wait for the test cricket debut as well. However, it was just a matter of time that he proved his mettle with the bat. After a delayed and stuttering debut against Australia in Delhi, Ajinkya travelled to South Africa, New Zealand, England and Australia. He played 13 of his 14 test matches away from home in the most difficult batting conditions. This was the time when Rahane announced himself as a complete batsman. Solidity and excellent technique were the features of his batting abroad. Batting in the middle order, he tallied more than 1000 runs in tests at a staggering average of 45. He registered 3 centuries and 6 fifties against the most ferocious opponents in world cricket. The 103 he scored at the Lord’s is one of his personal favorite knocks as it was for the winning cause and it helped India register a victory at Lord’s after long time.

Contrary to his image of being calm and silent, Ajinks has been amazingly superb opening the innings in IPL for Rajasthan Royals. He has been piling hundreds of runs in each season for the Royals. It is always a treat watching Ajinkya bat in T20s. His form with the bat showed consistency as he was the second highest run getter in IPL 2015 totaling 540 runs in 13 innings.

Retirement of the greats of Indian cricket made way for many youngsters. Out of many, Rahane has now firmly cemented his position in the Indian playing XI in every format of the game. Ajinkya’s current form seems to be its peak and arguable he is presently India’s most consistent performer. Before his successful IPL 2015 campaign, Rahane had superb outing on the Australian pitches in the tests and the ODI series. In the 2015 world cup in Australia, the innings against South Africa was a special one where he blasted the deadly pace attack of Proteas scoring 79 off just 60 balls. He was recently conferred with the CEAT Indian Cricketer of the Year award.

It was under Rahul Dravid, his captain-mentor and now the coach of Rajasthan Royals, Rahane emerged as a classic batsman in the modern era. Showing terrific skills with the bat in India and more importantly abroad, there are plenty who rate Rahane to be the next Wall of India. The Wall, Rahul Dravid himself has been all praises for the Mumbai batter and considers him as a prolific batsman of today’s cricket. Rahane has been rightly receiving praises from all the cricketing greats including Wadekar, Gavaskar, Tendulkar.

Cricket Tracker wishes Ajinkya Rahane, the new Mr. Consistent a very happy birthday as the batsman turns 27 years old today. We wish him all the luck to pile plentiful runs for India in the future.