Ambati Rayudu used to play some wild shots in his younger days that evoked anger in his friends and teammates.
Some of his strange shots were put down as caused by “rush of blood”. As a puny lad in 2002, Rayudu showed the first signs of promise with a blazing 177 against the likes of Liam Plunkett, Tim Bresnan and Samit Patel in the last of the India-England under-19 series at Taunton.
On Thursday, after notching up his first ODI century against Sri Lanka at the Motera stadium — a superbly constructed unconquered 121 (118b, 10x4, 4x6) — Rayudu did not openly say that he loved scoring centuries.
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“I’m definitely happy that I got a hundred. But for me personally, the three-figure mark doesn’t matter. It’s the team victory that matters. When you play for India, you have to fulfil whatever role the team gives you. It’s more about roles than landmarks.”
Rayudu’s comments on his first century flummoxed quite a few at the post match press conference. He suffered much at the beginning of his first class career; tossing himself around playing for Hyderabad, Andhra and Baroda and, in between, strayed into the rebel ICL before taking the amnesty to return to mainstream cricket. Clearly the best thing that happened to his career was being roped in by IPL team Mumbai Indians.
Many sessions on and off the field with John Wright, Robin Singh and, of course, Sachin Tendulkar went a long way in steadying his mind. As always he was fearless, hit long sixes, kept wickets, threw and caught well in the deep and caught the attention of one and all.
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Thanks to his run-getting ability in the IPL (356, 395, 333, 265, 361 from 2009-10 season to 2013-14) Rayudu got his due in the Indian ODI team; he has played 21 matches and missed 17. An interesting statistic here is that with Rayudu India has won 14 of the 21 matches and seven of the 17 matches without him.
It has taken a dozen years — after his under-19 success in England — for him to be on centrestage. He was in the middle for nearly three hours, did not give the impression that he was playing second fiddle to Shikhar Dhawan or Virat Kohli and steered the team to victory.
If the first 500 runs is a milestone in ODIs, then Rayudu crossed it on Thursday.
Rayudu surprised Mahela Jayawardene with a fine catch, took his second to send back Seekkuge Prasanna and ran out Ashan Priyanjan.
With bat in hand he kept the Sri Lankans at bay and scripted India’s 434th victory in 865 ODIs.