In the last two years, Rahane and reliability have become interchangeable. Ajinkya is one batsman who has turned out to be dependable like Dravid, effortless like Laxman, attacking like Ganguly, and yet humble like Sachin. He has showcased skills of the fab four in bits and pieces but more importantly, he has established himself as someone whom youngsters can look up to.

India has found a new Test sensation in Rahane and his exploits go a long way beyond this challenge. His purple patch in Tests began right from his first foreign tour of New Zealand and since then he has been on a roll. Rahane is a typical old-school batsman whose game is based on a solid technique, an impeccable temperament, dogged determination, and an intent to bat for relentless hours. Unlike many modern-day batsmen, Rahane is very orthodox and prefers to play textbook shots rather than extravagant ones.

He strokes the balls to fence with utmost ease and pure timing. All his shots have class written over it and they are as gracious on the eyes as anything you would ever see. But it has been Rahane’s dependability and versatility which separates him from the rest.

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To find your feet in international cricket in itself is a treacherous task and it becomes even trickier when you have to do it in alien foreign conditions. It’s different to be successful on home land, where you have played all your life, to succeed in overseas, where conditions are starkly opposite. But, Rahane has conquered them all.

To further highlight the challenges he has had to face, Rahane has not batted at a fixed position and his positing in battling lineup has varied from no.3 to no.7. He was tested in almost all the positions. But, the classical batter passed all of those challenges with distinction and has scored a century at all these positions, which showcases his mettle.

The tough challenges which Rahane faced in early part of his career were daunting but what matters the most is how well you walk through the fire. Like his mentor, Rahul Dravid, he just kept going about his work silently, rathar than complaining about the lack of chances he had received, when he was at his prime.

Instead, Rahane vented out everything with the bat and scored in bulk to possess the best Test average among the Indian batsmen since Dec 2013.

Though the differences in averages, in the above chart, of the trio are not very significant, yet to score at a rate better than Murali Vijay and Virat Kohli, who made their debuts in 2008 and 2011 respectively, is a massive achievement. Moreover, Vijay and Kohli have played at a fixed batting position in the team, unlike Rahane.

The context in which Rahane has scored these runs makes them a lot more special. Stats will not tell you that Rahane has had to build partnerships with tailenders more often than not, largely due to lackluster performances of MS Dhoni and Rohit Sharma during that period. And batting with the lower-order batsmen requires a different skill set altogether.

It is worth mentioning that the English tour which was his worst in terms of averages, also saw him stroking a match-winning ton at the Lord’s. On the first day of the Lord’s Test, India had to bat on a pitch which was as lush green as the outfield and veterans like Anderson and Broad were breathing fire in the middle. Everyone in the top seven failed apart from Rahane, who scored a free-flowing ton and laid the foundation for a historic win. It was after 28 long-years that India finally tasted glory in Tests at the Mecca of cricket. So, even his worst tour was not that disastrous.

The Sri Lankan tour was Ajinkya’s poorest series in terms of averages. But there as well he scored a brilliant 126 in the 2nd innings of the Colombo Test to hand over India a match-winning lead. So, even in his not so good series, he has contributed quite handsomely and most importantly towards winning causes.

Some interesting statistical facts about Rahane:

- Rahane is the best ranked Indian Test batsmen at present and is placed at 11th.

- Rahane is one of only nine batsmen to make a hundred from four different batting positions in their first 22 Tests.

- Rahane's ten 50-plus scores in his first 16 Tests overseas places him third on the list behind Sunil Gavaskar and Rahul Dravid.

- Vijay and Kohli failed on South African and England tour miserably and averaged 12 and 13.40 respectively while Rahane’s least prolific non-Asian tour was in England where he averaged 33.22, which shows that there hasn’t been any tour where his contributions have been almost equal to nil.

- Rahane has scored centuries at Wellington, Lord’s, Melbourne, and Colombo besides scoring 96 and 98 runs in Durban and Fatuallah respectively.

The legendary Indian opener, Sunil Gavaskar had termed Rahane as the most complete Indian Test batsman. He had said that, "Rahane is currently the most complete Test batsman in the country. He is brilliant both in attacking and defending. He has done well everywhere, in all the conditions whereas Virat Kohli struggled in England".

Ajinkya is the ultimate team-man and that trait was on display in Sri Lanka as well. He didn’t grumble when he was asked to bat at no.3 in order to shield the struggling Rohit Sharma, even though Rahane had already established himself in the middle-order. Any other batter might have protested the move to leave his batting position, but Rahane happily agreed to provide cushion to Rohit, who was moved to Rahane’s batting position.

His stature reached a new high in the home series against South Africa where all the other batsmen struggled on dust bowls, except Rahane, who averaged a whopping 53 and who was the only batsman from either of the sides to score a ton in the series. More notably, he scored two tons in a single Test, while the other couldn’t score even one in four Tests. AB de Villiers was the second best in the series with an average of 36.85, which once again highlights Rahane class.

Rahane’s stellar performances have been rewarded by the selectors as well and recently he was made the vice-captain of the Test side.

Indians will again bank on its 'Mr. Dependable' to come good in the Caribbean. He has set up new benchmarks for Indian batsmen in red-ball cricket. Rahane’s invariable consistency, self-belief, rock-solid batting technique, performances under pressure, mastery of scoring in different conditions, adaptability to change gears as per the requirements and selflessness make him the best Indian Test batsman in the present squad, hands down!