From now on every time Rahane goes out to bat he will have to cope with expectations, not just hope.

On day three of the third Test in Melbourne, two heavyweights collided. Mitchell Johnson struck Virat Kohli with a throw and tempers flared. The bowler had a few words to say, the batsman lost his calm and tried to smash the ball out of the park when the bowler resumed. The short passage of play was brought to a halt by the tea-break but you sensed it wasn’t over.

Johnson returned fully charged and resolved to testing his opponent with the short ball. He was duly dispatched to mid-wicket, smacked again and then again. Only this counter-attack wasn’t led by Kohli. The charge after tea was taken up by Ajinkya Rahane.

“I didn’t expect Jinx [Ajinkya] to hit Johnson like that,” Kohli said later. “I mean he is a compact player and he plays all the right shots. But it was great to see such attacking cricket from him from the other end.”

That is the thing about Rahane. He isn’t very chatty but gets his point across. Even in press conferences, his replies are single-sentences at best. He seems nervous sitting across the cameras, almost uncomfortable to be in the spotlight.

In the nets, he looks the busiest player of the lot. He listens intently to the coaches, soaking up all the knowledge he can squeeze out of them.

You sneak a glance and he is batting. He keeps batting until told to stop and it is someone else’s turn. Then he rests, body language suggesting mild disappointment that he couldn’t bat longer. You look again and he is batting again, until he is told to stop.

Rewind to the end of 2013. India were traveling to South Africa in the aftermath of Sachin Tendulkar’s retirement. It was a completely new batting line-up.

There were high expectations for Shikhar Dhawan and Murali Vijay. Cheteshwar Pujara and Virat Kohli were already the designated replacements for Rahul Dravid and Tendulkar. Rohit Sharma, as always, was much talked about. Rahane was also there, somewhere.

Rahane is that small box of firecrackers that often goes unnoticed because it is surrounded by jazzier, more expensive crackers. But in this Indian team, he has been lighting up loudest on every away tour over the last 13 months. In South Africa and New Zealand, he batted below Rohit, at number six. He scored 371 runs in eight innings there. Rohit got less than half of his tally. A few months later, when India decided to play five bowlers in England, Rahane moved ahead of Rohit.

It was perhaps a turning point for the batsman, who had finally moved ahead of his more touted teammate. Ranking high in confidence, Rahane made that glorious hundred at Lord’s and led India to victory on a green-top wicket.

Even though he couldn’t carry his form through the England series, Rahane had grown in stature. He was no longer the new-guy-on-the-block waiting for his shot. He was here to stay.

Rahane is not one to rest on his laurels though. There is always the next step to conquer, which is the hallmark of a great player. Landing in Australia, he revealed a new facet to his game, based on the team’s strategy to attack.

When Kohli is in his zone, he is rarely outscored. This is precisely what Rahane did in Melbourne. Every time he has come to the crease in this current series, the Mumbai batsman has got off to a whirlwind start. In previous series, he had taken his time to get going.

As Kohli dropped anchor, Rahane kept the runs flowing. And it worked because Australia expected them to play those roles in reverse. With that scintillating knock at the MCG, Rahane graduated from ant-worker to soldier.

“He is a very compact player, very technically correct,” MS Dhoni said in Melbourne during his last press conference. “He knows his limitations. But at the same time he is someone close to how VVS Laxman batted. When Rahane bats, runs will flow as he is not someone who bats without scoring runs so that is definitely a big positive especially in these conditions,”

When he first came into the reckoning, with his quiet demeanour and intense work regiment, Rahane was seen as a shadow of his mentor Dravid. Now he has been likened to another Indian batting great in Laxman.

From now on every time Rahane goes out to bat he will have to cope with expectations, not just hope. It won’t be easy but he will tackle it head-on like has done every challenge in his career, and do so silently.