Ajinkya Rahane is the antithesis of the boisterous modern T20 cricketer

By Garima Verma

The current generation of Indian cricketers take after the boisterous brigade that wore its heart on its sleeve — the Bothams and the Lillees. But just as there’s a Bjorn Borg for a John McEnroe, Ajinkya Rahane believes in maintaining the equilibrium.

He has just led a depleted Rajasthan Royals to the playoffs. “We are happy the way we have played so far but it is important that we take one step at a time now. Playoffs will be a different game, you can’t afford any mistake,” he tells ET Sports.


“Playing against Kolkata at Eden Gardens will be special for all of us. KKR have a good team — Dinesh Karthik is in form and leading the team well. But we would rather play to our strengths than thinking too much about them,” adds Rahane, popularly called Jinks. Though the added responsibility might have taken a toll on his batting as compared with his performances a couple of his years ago, his calmness helped the side. “I enjoyed this new role. Yes, I didn’t perform that well. As a player you know your role is completely different but as a captain, especially when captaining a franchise team, it is different. You have to first see what is best for the team. I t h i n k rather that scoring big runs, the 25-30 (runs) that’s useful to the team is better,” says Rahane.

“T20 is always going to be a roller-coaster ride. You tend to need three or four games to find the right combination, and it wasn’t just us. We got our combination right, just that it didn’t click earlier. We got the momentum after five or six games, and our belief and attitude on the field changed for good.

“I started as an opener. Then I moved to No 3 or 4 as we felt that Jos (Buttler) needed that one innings. And I think he did really well at top of the order so we didn’t want to change his batting order.”

That worked not only for the Englishman but the Royals too — he was seen talking to the troops before facing Kolkata. “It’s not only about the captain all the time. Jos came to me and said that he would like to say a few words and I said, ‘yeah go ahead’. As a captain, so many things are going through your mind, so your job becomes easier when someone raises his hand.” And, that has been the story of RR’s IPL 2018 campaign. When one was unavailable, others have shouldered the responsibility.

He will be leading India in whites against Afghanistan in the one off Test next month as well. With the visitors having gained Test status as recently as 2017, that might look like a simple task but Rahane is not the one to drop his guard. “It’s a big challenge,” he says.

“You cannot take it lightly irrespective of the team you are playing against. Opponents don’t matter — we should improve our cricket, we should play with the same attitude. Our intensity on the field will matter.” His reticence and guarded approach somewhat reflects his other choices as well. Representing his country means so much for Rahane that he would rather just don the India jersey by any means than bother about a position that might favour his game. The general opinion being that he is best-suited to bat between No 1 and 4.

“I am always open to playing at any position and I have done that in the past. It doesn’t matter whether you open or bat at 3/4/5, but your contribution for your country matters. For me, it is all about adapting to the situation and condition as quickly as possible. You got to be flexible when you are representing your country as that is the highest goal,” he says.

But he has much to do in the present to keep an eye out on future. “I go match by match, series by series. I don’t generally think far too ahead. I like to keep things really simple and be in that ‘now’ mode and keep preparing to achieve those goals. I would rather focus on that than think about the results. You have to have patience.”