Numbers don’t capture Ajinkya Rahane

Rahane leaves as he played: Understated, gifted, and never quite paid in full for either. 2 min readJul 31, 2026 06:15 AM IST First published on: Jul 31, 2026 at 06:15 AM IST Ajinkya Rahane retired from international cricket on Thursday, signing off as “Cap 278”. He leaves with 85 Tests, 90 ODIs, 20 T20Is and more than 8,000 international runs. The numbers do him injustice. There was a stretch, deep into the last decade, when Rahane’s batting belonged in the company of that of Virat Kohli, Joe Root, Kane Williamson. M S Dhoni once said his gift was “the timing… and his ability to exploit gaps in the field”. He never built the mountain of runs that talent seemed to promise, and that gap, between what he could do and what he actually left behind, is the real story of his career. Perhaps the