MATCH STORIES
Follow UsYou ask Sachin Tendulkar what’s his favourite venue in the country, and he will reply Chepauk.
Over the last few decades, Chepauk has been accustomed and tuned to come out in numbers to watch the ‘God of Cricket’ bat. Every cricketing tale from the yesteryear has a tinge of Sachin, irrespective of the format.
And those tales span across generations, be it your grandparents, parents or siblings. They all have their own Sachin tale. But now the tune has changed slightly. It is no more ‘Sachin, Sachinnnnn, Sachinnnnn’ chants. It is 'Rachinnnnn, Rachinnnn' — all about 24-year-old Rachin Ravindra, who wasn’t even born when Sachin played his famous knock in Sharjah.
Rachin arrived in Chennai as a backup player, but he’s now transformed the Super Kings to a whole new level. Before joining the five-time IPL champions, Rachin’s talent was known but the numbers in the shortest format didn’t quite relate to that talent. His powerplay strike rate was 125.56, and it was quite easy to ignore him.
It was easy to write him off. But never write off a CSK player, at least before they don that famous yellow jersey. Since joining, Rachin has played just 35 deliveries, less than six overs, but his impact has already crossed boundaries (literally and figuratively).
In just 35 balls, the southpaw has taken the IPL by storm, scoring at a strike rate of 237.1. If you were wondering, he’s scored 77 of those runs in the powerplay phase, where he strikes at 233.3, the best for any player in this year’s competition.
None have attacked the bowlers with more ferocity. He was on 1 off 4 balls in the clash against Gujarat before finding the sweet spot against Umesh Yadav, after which he never looked back. It was almost like something clicked, and it was yet again that region - backward fine leg - which allowed Rachin to get going.
Once that happened, Gujarat were found waiting for solutions.
They bowled it wide, and he was already waiting for those deliveries. He was on the back foot when they pulled the length back, almost mocking the bowler saying, 'I know what you are thinking'. When they corrected that, bowling it full, he was driving them like a Ferrari picking up on an empty street.
0 to 200 in seconds.
The more he batted, the more the crowd roared. When he roared, the crowd went into overdrive, as if they showed Sachin on the big screen at Chepauk. But it was same same but different, it wasn’t Sachin, it was Rachin.
He went from 1 off 5 to 46 off 19, and Gujarat couldn’t even react to it. It wasn’t just Shubman Gill’s men who were put in such a spot of bother either; ask Faf du Plessis.
Whenever the opponents targetted his ribs or bowled it slightly on the leg side, he made it his business to send the ball out of Chepauk to reserve him a seat on the metro.
For every ball on the leg-side or slightly targetting his body, Rachin was like give me more. In 19 deliveries that he has attempted to hit on the leg-side, his score reads 60, and his strike rate is 315.8.
19 deliveries, 60 runs, strike rate 315.8.
That’s just one bit of the craziness. So far in IPL 2024, Rachin has scored 14 boundaries in the powerplay — only Punjab and Bengaluru have hit more boundaries than one certain Rachin. From Wellington to Walajapet, the fans knew it.
No wonder the fans were already chanting ‘Rachin, Rachin, Rachin.’ He’s arrived, and how.
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