Ajinkya Rahane’s role-model is Rahul Dravid. He always says that he wants to be like Rahul Dravid. Andwhile working closely with him for the Rajasthan Royals in the Indian Premier League (IPL), Rahane has implemented some of Dravid’s qualities in his game. Rahane, just like Dravid, has become a brilliant slip-catcher. In fact, he now holds the record for the most number of catches (8) by a fielder in a Test match. But, the best quality that he has learnt from Rahul Dravid is- “team-man”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSm4RW4nl-8
Dravid, in his long playing career, did everything that his team required. He batted at different positions, kept wickets and did everything that was needed off him. Similarly, Ajinkya Rahane has batted at 3-4 different position in his short Test career so far. In the second innings of the second Test of Cricbuzz Cup 2015, Rahane, batting at no. 3, proved that he, just like Dravid, can bat at any position. Rahane scored a brilliant century and solved India’s problem of finding the right no. 3, at least for this series. Since Cheteshwar Pujara’s lean patch, India have struggled to find the right man for the job, but it seems Ajinkya Rahane just might be the solution to this problem. However, it would be unfair to rule out Cheteshwar Pujara straight away, but Rahane’s brilliant hundred will surely put a lot of pressure on Pujara and this will also make his comeback a little more tougher.
Ajinkya Rahane’s fourth Test century helped India extend their lead over Sri Lanka by 370 runs on Day four of the Colombo Test and head to tea reasonably well paced at 283 for 5. This was Rahane’s first century batting at the No.3 position – his previous three hundreds were either at No. 5 or 6. There was never any doubt about Rahane’s class and technique. But no. 3 is a specialsed position in Test cricket and only the greats have batted at this positions in the long history of the game.
In nutshell, make Ajinkya Rahane bat anywhere, he’ll end up scoring runs.
