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Ajinkya Rahane has been the toast of Mumbai’s batting at the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy this season, after scoring three back-to-back half-centuries in record-breaking run chases.
Rahane has scored five half-centuries in his seven innings of the tournament, and has led a stacked Mumbai batting line-up which also poses the likes of captain Shreyas Iyer, Prithvi Shaw, Shivam Dubey and India’s T20I skipper Suryakumar Yadav.
Rahane was unsold in the first round of the IPL 2025 Mega Auction that took place last month, but he was eventually picked up by Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). His T20 form prior to the auction was not something that particularly stood out, but after KKR won the bid for him, Rahane went on a scoring blitz as all of his top performances of the ongoing SMAT season came after the auction.
With Suryakumar Yadav’s return, Rahane moved up to opening with Prithvi Shaw after initially batting at No. 4 in the tournament.
In their last group-stage match against Andhra, a loss would have meant Mumbai would have been knocked out of the tournament. Andhra posed a target of 230, a score never chased down before in the tournament. But this was about to change as Rahane’s 95 (54) set up the game for Mumbai who romped home six wickets and three balls to spare.
The Rahane show didn’t stop there as come the quarterfinals, Mumbai saw the senior star set up in a high run-chase yet again. Vidarbha put up a mammoth total of 221 in their quota of 20 overs. But a confident Mumbai, who had just broken the record for the highest run chase, put up another stellar show with Rahane being the man of the match yet again for his 45-ball 84. But his best performance was yet to come.
In the semi-final against Baroda on Friday, he marched through the opponents bowling line-up with ease and class, missing out on a century by just two runs. His 98 off 56 balls in a chase of 159 saw Mumbai easily make the finals, where they will face the winner of the second semifinal between Madhya Pradesh and Delhi.
Just a few weeks ago, it seemed as though the veteran’s run in T20s was done, and him not being picked in the first round of the IPL 2025 Auction would only make those assumptions stronger, until KKR bid for him in the accelerated auction. Now, after his performances in SMAT, he is also in contention to lead the KKR side with his only competition for the role being Venkatesh Iyer, who was bought by the franchise for a whopping 23.75 crore.
Rahane’s scores in SMAT 2024:
98 (56) vs Andhra
84(45) vs Vidarbha
95(54) vs Andhra Pradesh
22(18) vs Services
Did not bat vs Nagaland
68(35) vs Kerala
52(34) vs Maharashtra
13 (13) vs Goa
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