India's Ajinkya Rahane, right, is run out by Australia's Tim Paine, left, during play on day three of the second cricket test between India and Australia at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Melbourne, Australia, Monday, Dec. 28
After all the effort from Australia throughout day 2, which involved three dropped catches, it took a run out to get rid of the Indian stand-in skipper Ajinkya Rahane on the third morning of the Boxing Day Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Rahane walked back to a standing ovation from the MCG crowd, for 112 runs.
Ravindra Jadeja, then on 49, looked desperate to complete a single that would also take the lead to a three-figure mark and hence took off after fending off a delivery from Nathan Lyon towards mid-on. Rahane, the ever-generous player, decided to go for the run on Jadeja's call, but while the latter survived, Rahane succumbed, by the barest of margins. Marnus Labuschagne threw the ball towards Tim Paine in time for the keeper to remove the bails.
Rahane pated Jadeja, probably of the similar guilt that had engulfed him when he ran out Virat Kohli in Adelaide, as he walked back scoring 112 runs, the second-highest score by an Indian captain at the MCG and the fifth among all visiting captains.
This was for the first time in his Test career that Rahane was dismissed run out. He suffered a similar dismissal four times in ODIs and once in T20Is. He also became the third Indian captain to score a century and be dismissed run out after Vijay Hazare in 1951 and Rahul Dravid in 2006.
This was also the second time a team that featured two different captains in the same series were dismissed run out, with Kohli having suffered the fate in Adelaide. The previous such instance was in India's series against Pakistan in 2004 when Dravid was run out in the second Test and Sourav Ganguly in the third.
Jadeja eventually completed his half-century in the next over, his 15th in the Test career, to take India's lead past 100 at the MCG.
