Hat Tip, Ajinkya!
Ajinkya Rahane announced his retirement from international cricket in all formats of the game on 30 July, 2026. Rahane did so in his inimitable style, the same way he played the game: nonchalantly and quietly. No decorated press conference. No farewell tour. Only a short video, announcing that a career spanning nearly two decades was over.
The numbers alone don’t tell you much about him. In 85 Tests, Rahane amassed 5,077 runs, averaging 38.46, laced with 12 centuries and 26 fifties. Of his 12 Test hundreds, eight were scored away from the comforts of home turf.
Add to the tally his 90 ODI appearances and 20 T20Is, his international run tally crosses the 8,400-mark. But Rahane was never really a numbers’ player. What people remember is how he batted when everything around him was falling apart. How he performed when it mattered the most.
For example, notable stat: of Rahane’s 15 international centuries, not one came in a losing cause. Every hundred landed in a win or a draw. There was the 103 at Lord’s in 2014 that helped India finally win there after a 28-year-long wait. The counter-attacking 147 at the MCG that same year. And the captain’s century, 112, also at the MCG in 2020, the one that turned an entire series on its head. He earned the tag “Mr. Dependable” the old-fashioned way, by actually being dependable, over and over again, and when it counted.
If one series defines him, it’s the Australia 2020-21 tour. India had just been bowled out for 36 in Adelaide, Virat Kohli had flown home for the birth of his daughter, and Rahane was left holding together a team nobody expected much from. He answered with a composed century at the MCG, steadied the dressing room and calmed down the nerves, and led India to a historic 2-1 series win that included the famous win at the Gabba, Brisbane. As captain, he never lost a Test. His stellar record of four wins and two draws in six matches. Not many Indian Test skippers have such stats in their CVs.
His long-time coach Pravin Amre, who had worked with him since the Under-17 days, called that MCG innings the “finest of Rahane’s career”. But he didn’t stop there: “Ajinkya never got support from the system. He finished with 85 Tests, but he was someone who deserved to play 100. If he had got the support, he would have finished in that legendary group.”
Ask anyone who played alongside him, and you get to hear some version of the same thing. Kohli called him his “favourite Test batting partner” and the “safest pair of hands” in the slips’ cordon. Tendulkar praised his composure. Sehwag summed it up in two words: “Calm, solid.” What people bring up isn’t flash; it’s a teammate who showed up early, stayed up late, and treated a net session in Dombivli with the same seriousness as a Test match overseas.
His coaches say that punctuality, oddly, might be the most Rahane thing about the elegant batter. It came from years of boarding the crowded local trains, and the habit never really left him. They loved him for being level-headed, unfussy, and putting the team ahead of himself.
He played in an era dominated by larger-than-life personalities, Kohli and Rohit Sharma among them, and he seemed genuinely fine staying out of the spotlight. Plenty of fans preferred his classical, old-school batting anyway. Others felt the system quietly moved on from him in his later years without much explanation. Rahane rarely complained about any of it. He just kept working.
He leaves the game with more than a stat sheet. He captained three IPL franchises, led Mumbai to a Ranji Trophy title, and built a reputation spanning nearly two decades. He was someone you could rely on. In cricket, such a trait is rare.
In his farewell message, Rahane thanked fans for their support and said there was one place he’d never been defeated: “Their hearts”.
Cap No. 278 signed off the way Rahane played with no fuss, no drama, just the quiet respect of everyone who ever shared a dressing room with him.
Hat tip, Ajinkya!
(The author is an independent content writer and blogger. As a cricket aficionado, he often writes about the game. He can be reached at bilalahsandar@yahoo.com)
