India has generated 319 Test cricketers. Thirty-six of them have been able to funnel their talent, hard work and sacrifice to average above 40. Gavaskar. Tendulkar. Dravid. Kohli. Instantly recognisable names who left behind glittering legacies. For a majority of his career, barring a slow start, and some blips in between, Ajinkya Rahane was part of this elite. And then he wasn't. Now he never will be.
The life of anyone in any field where they are better than good but not quite great can be complicated. Never picked first but asked to shoulder the same burden. Afforded the limelight only when there was no option. Very few are able to go through this cycle without developing a chip on their shoulder.
Rahane carried the drinks for 16 Tests before he got the chance to play for his country. He didn't mind. He was given the comfort of home conditions in just 32 of his 85 matches. He didn't mind. The only times he got to captain his team was when someone was unavailable. He didn't mind. It was only in his 19th year as a professional that he finally gave in to base impulse. An IPL winner, a veteran of three World Cups and the man who led India to their greatest ever Test series victory, in Australia in 2020-21, decided that all of his critics were just "jealous".
As a boy, Rahane had the luck of being neighbours with the one person in the world who wouldn't just narc on a seven-year-old who kept breaking apartment windows playing cricket, and instead suggest that he might benefit from actual coaching. He also had a father who took that on board. Madhukar would join his little son on the local train that connected his home in Dombivli to the maidans in south Mumbai. "Baba [his father] came for the first day or two to guide me. He then told me to go alone. But even though I thought I was on my own, Baba was in the compartment behind mine. He was watching me. And he was there with me till the last stop. When he found I was all right, he stopped accompanying me."
For some reason, Rahane was always all right. He was all right spending hours of his life smushed in with other people inside a metal box travelling at high speeds. He was all right wearing clothes soaked in his sweat to training. He didn't have spares. He was all right with cheap bats that broke if he swung them too hard. He couldn't afford to replace them. Everyone is born with a capacity for suffering but usually they take it on board hoping it would lead to something good.
In Rahane's case, roughing it almost every step of the way equipped him to carry India's middle order into the future. In 2014, a year after Tendulkar retired, he announced himself with hundreds in Wellington, London and Melbourne. He also married his childhood friend Radhika Dhopavkar, though he had to be dragged out of the nets first.
Rahane's batting was all about touch. He didn't always need a bad ball to profit from, which was just as well because they were often in short supply in the games he played. India threw him up against James Anderson on a Lord's pitch that was the exact shade of green the pukeface emoji was modeled on and he responded with a stately 103. A few months later, facing up to Mitchell Johnson in his post-Ashes glow-up era, Rahane punk-rocked his way to 147.
In 2020, he produced perhaps his finest innings, one that carried virtually all his trademarks. The only thing missing was the nervousness that colour his starts; the restlessness to feel bat on ball.
In the lead-up to that Boxing Day game at the MCG, Rahane binge-watched Tendulkar's 116 at the same ground. When he was out in the middle though, he focused on being himself and relied on a strength outsiders often misunderstood. "My appearance may be humble on a cricket field, but from inside, I am aggressive. I do not show it on my face. I try to keep my emotions inside. I feel that because of staying cool, I am able to retain my stability while batting. I can handle obstacles and pressure better because of that calmness."
Rahane changed the course of history with that 112. On the back of it, a team that got bowled out for 36 went on to win the trophy.
Melbourne was his eighth Test century in overseas conditions; he was scoring them at a rate of about one in six matches. The inability to keep up those numbers at home, however, led to his dropping out of the side. In limited-overs, a tendency to succeed only as long as he was installed in the top-order made it hard to persist with him.
Rahane still walks away as one of only 12 Indians with Test, ODI and IPL hundreds and the 2023 boom, where he made 326 runs at a strike rate of 172.48 for Chennai Super Kings, including a crucial 27 off 13 balls in the final, was a glimpse of what could have been. Not to mention a hearty change of pace from the opener who batted to the 16th over of a T20 World Cup semi-final scoring just two boundaries.
It even bought him a chance to re-enter the international arena and fight for a championship title but neither really came to pass.
In the 78th of his 85 Tests, Rahane's average dipped below 40. By a mere 1.54 points, he now belongs with the best of the rest. Another nearly man. It is the evolutionary state every athlete hopes to avoid and it has consumed one of the good ones.