Skipper Ajinkya Rahane concentrated hard as his unbeaten 86 off 197 balls took Mumbai to 237 for four against Rest of India on a weather-curtailed opening day of the Irani Cup. The veteran of 5000 plus runs in 85 Tests, who is not on national selectors’ radar, dug deep into his reservoirs of concentration to keep Mumbai on even keel against an impressive duo of Mukesh Kumar (3/60 in 14 overs) and Yash Dayal (1/46 in 15 overs). Shreyas Iyer (57 off 84 balls) and Sarfaraz Khan (54 batting, 88 balls) were tad a more adventurous in trying to get a move on in the 68 overs of play possible on Tuesday.
In fact, Rahane played the second fiddle during his 102-run fourth wicket stand with Iyer after Mukesh had reduced them to 37 for three in his first spell.
At stumps, Rahane had the company of Sarfaraz and the duo had 98 runs for the fifth wicket and would like to consolidate on the second day.
For someone, who has 12 Test hundreds in his 40 first-class tons, Rahane wasn’t exactly very assertive during his stay at the wicket. He has so far hit six fours and a six over long-off off left-arm spinner Manav Suthar’s bowling.
He did hit a few crisp boundaries through off-side but overall never looked like on top of the ROI bowling.
In fact apart from that six and a boundary, Suthar kept him quiet with only 22 runs taken off 58 balls bowled by the Rajasthan spinner.
Against Prasidh Krishna, he faced 38 balls but managed to score only seven runs.
While a century would do no harm to his reputation but Rahane, whose brilliant leadership during the historic 2021 series win in Australia is a part of Indian cricketing folklore, would need to dominate domestic attacks if he remotely harbours any hope of getting a national recall.
In fact, Iyer was more attacking against the lanky Karnataka speedster hitting him for five out of his half a dozen boundaries.
The two sixes — one each off pacer Mukesh and off-break bowler Saransh Jain — were treat to watch before Dayal prised him out.
Sarfaraz took on Suthar and got three boundaries off the left-arm spinner.
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