Ajinkya Rahane was in his element on Sunday as the stand-in skipper made the most of the opportunity of leading the team with an impactful century, which allowed India to take a 131-run first-innings lead over Australia in the second Test in Melbourne on Monday.
Rahane, who is leading the side in place of Virat Kohli, took 195 balls to score his 12th Test ton; making him the 10th Indian captain to score a century in Test cricket history. His innings ended at 112 runs on Monday morning when Marnus Labuschagne ran him out after a briliant fielding effort. His captain's knock allowed India to post 326 runs on board in reply to Australia's 195 in first innings. He was aptly supported by Ravindra Jadeja (57 runs off 159 balls) with whom he had a 121-run stand for the sixth wicket. the entire lower middle-order folded after adding 49 runs to the overnight score of 277/5.
Interestingly, the 31-year-old batsman had three lifelines during the course of his innings as he was dropped at 73 on the second slip by Steve Smith of Mitchell Starch while earlier he edged one through a non-existent first slip for a boundary while batting at 61. He was again dropped at 104 at the end of Day 2's play when Travis Head failed to grab on to a diving catch running from the point.
After India were down to 64/3 in the first session of the day, Rahane rebuilt Indian innings with multiple partnerships with the lower middle-order. He had a 52-run stand for the fourth-wicket with Hanuma Vihari before the latter was dismissed.
Rahane, who is the only second Indian captain to score a century at Melbourne behind Sachin Tendulkar in 1999, then added 57 runs along with wicket-keeper batsman Rishabh Pant for the fifth-wicket stand and when the youngster caught behind by his Australian counterpart Tim Paine off Mitchell Starc for 29. At that point, India were 173/5 and 22 runs behind Oz's first innings total.
