Rahane was dropped for this SA Test series despite being vice-captain for West Indies tour.
Indian batting couldn’t withstand the impressive bowling by Kagiso Rabada, Marco Jansen, and Gerald Coetzee along with debutant Nandre Burger. Rabada picked a five-wicket haul to reduce India to 121/6.
But then KL Rahul with 70* carried India to 208/8 at the end of the day’s play with a contribution from Shardul Thakur.
Sunil Gavaskar said that India might have had a different score in the Centurion Test if they had selected Rahane to play. He recalled Rahane’s gritty 48 on a difficult pitch in the third and final Test in the 2018-19 Test series in South Africa.
"People have been talking about the pitch in the Johannesburg Test five years back and I was there. Yeah, it wasn't the easiest of pitches to bat on the oddball was climbing up. And Ajinkya Rahane, who had not been picked for the first two Test matches, was picked for that game and he showed what the Indian team had missed because earlier on in the first couple of Test matches India did not lose by big margins. So maybe somebody with Rahane's experience overseas... because Rahane overseas has been such a fine, fine player and maybe if he had been there today the story could have been completely different," Gavaskar said on commentary on Star Sports.
The BCCI selectors have seemingly moved on from veterans Ajinkya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara since early 2022. Rahane recently made his return after 18 months on the sidelines in the final of the WTC Test and West Indies series. He was then appointed vice-captain for the West Indies tour, only to find himself dropped again for the South Africa series.