India batter Ajinkya Rahane said that he was taken aback after he was left out of the ODI team back in 2018. The right-hander played in the tour of South Africa, after which he hasn’t donned the coloured jersey for the Men in Blue. Against the Proteas, the 33-year-old Rahane scored 61 runs at an average of 20.33.
2017 was a prolific year for Rahane in ODI cricket as he notched 726 runs from 18 matches at an average of 45.37 with one century and eight half-centuries. In fact, from September 21, 2017, to February 1, 2018, Rahane scored five half-centuries in a row. The century he got was against the West Indies at Port of Spain.
I don’t want to go into that: Ajinkya Rahane
“Before that (February 2018), I was playing ODI cricket continuously for Team India and I was doing really well. Suddenly, I got dropped, I don’t want to go into that, I don’t want to go into my past but the reality is I was playing well in 2014, 15, 16, and 17. ODI and Test cricket both were going really well,” Rahane added.
Rahane made his ODI debut back in 2011 after he performed well for the Rajasthan Royals (RR) in the Indian Premier League (IPL). He opened the batting for his team and played some jaw-dropping knocks. Thereafter, he got a chance in India’s ODI series against England.
From there on, he played quite some knocks of substance in the 50-over format. In 90 ODIs, Rahane scored, 2962 runs at an average of 35.26 and a strike rate of 78.63. With three tons and 24 fifties, the veteran didn’t flatter to deceive by any means.
Of late, Ajinkya Rahane has also been jostling for form in Test cricket. After the century he scored in the Melbourne Test of the 2020-21 Border Gavaskar Trophy, Rahane has strained to find his feet due to a string of low scores in the purest format.
There have been calls of replacing Rahane with a younger player. In 82 Tests, Rahane is only 69 runs short of scoring 5000 Test runs. He has also played 20 T20s, scoring 375 runs with one half-century.
