Former Indian cricketer Pravin Amre has heaped praise on Ajinkya Rahane, saying India’s stand-in captain’s meticulous planning and execution of his training sessions during the COVID-19 break is helping him immensely on the ongoing tour of Australia.
Praising for his diligence amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Amre who has worked closely with Rahane, hailed the right-hander for outstandingly leading India from the front in the recent Boxing Day Test in Melbourne.
Rahane’s match-winning 112 was indeed a special knock as the Indian cricket team made a remarkable comeback to level the four-Test series 1-1 with an emphatic and memorable eight-wicket triumph in the second Test at the iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG).
Amre told PTI: “We don’t think about multiple tours at one time. We try to be in that one tour, (take) one tour at a time and try to give best in that basically. And that is what Ajinkya did.”
Amre also said the credit must be given to Rahane the way he himself managed his own training sessions during the COVID-19 enforced break and now people saw the results.
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He further explained, “This year (2020) especially we have to give credit to him (Rahane) because most of the time as coaches we plan the sessions and practise, but this particular, in this difficult time in COVID, he planned his own sessions, worked hard, basically harder than before, because he used to practise two sessions instead of one. But those are the things, small things he worked (on), he visualized this is going to be my preparation for this tough of Australia. And any success can’t come just like (that), we know preparation is important.”
Lauding Rahane’s captaincy, Amre said: “That credit (of captaincy) is for Ajinkya only because as a coach we never work on things like captaincy, we work mainly on the batting side of the game. When the opportunity came to lead, it is all his credit. Handling the situation wasn’t easy but credit goes to him because of his calm nature also. He is calm and composed and that is the reason he was successful as captain.”
He further added, “The small-small changes (he did), backing youngsters, getting (Ravichandran) Ashwin in the first hour and using (Jasprit) Bumrah brilliantly. Because this is a Test match, we haven’t allowed their tail to wag and we made sure that Bumrah and (other) pace bowlers were fresh to bowl them and we never allowed them to drag the match and rather never allowed them to get that partnership.”
On India’s thrilling comeback win at the MCG, a former cricketer said: “I personally rate (it) very high. Because it is like sometimes you play for yourself to survive in the team, this is like survival of Team India in Australia, because we wanted to win the pride, what we lost in the first Test.”
He signed off by saying, “See winning and losing is the second thing, in cricket it is part of the game. But the way we played the second Test was so critical because this series is alive because of that second Test, that is what we wanted as a cricket lover, cricket fan “we wanted to see India fighting there and we are extremely happy, not only (we fought) but produced the result where we beat Australia on Australian soil.”
(With PTI Inputs)
