Out of favor India batter, Ajinkya Rahane has not been in action for the national side since the Cape Town Test against South Africa in January early this year. Due to poor batting form, Rahane had already lost his vice-captaincy to KL Rahul, when Rohit Sharma had taken over as Test captain.
He was not picked for the Sri Lanka series at home, the rescheduled fifth Test against England, and is not part of the ongoing Bangladesh Test series as well. He along with Cheteshwar Pujara was dropped from the Indian side, but Cheteshwar Pujara managed to make a comeback and recently hit 90 and 102* in the 1st Test against Bangladesh.
Rahane also dealt with a knee injury which kept him out of the better part of the IPL 2022, but after recovering, is currently leading Mumbai in the Ranji Trophy and scored a dashing double-ton against Hyderabad in their ongoing second-round match.
While talking about his ouster from the Indian team, Rahane pointed out that the averages of middle-order batters like him, Virat Kohli, and Cheteshwar Pujara went down in the last 2-3 years, especially in India due to the kind of pitches that were produced.
“There was no mistake (in his style of batting that his average dipped), we were playing in India for the last three years. If you look at the players who are batting at number three, four or five their average has come down because of the wickets. Pujji-Virat and my (Pujara, Kohli) averages have come down,” Rahane told reporters.
“I don’t think there were many mistakes; it’s not every time that we are committing mistakes. Sometimes the wickets are such, this is no excuse but everyone saw the kind of wickets we had in India,” the middle-order batsman added.
The 34-year-old Rahane has played 82 Tests for India of which 17 were played in the last three years.
In the 2020-21 season his average was 29.23 in 14 innings (8 Tests) while in 2021 it dipped further to 19 in nine innings (5 Tests). In the 2021-22 season, he averaged 21.87 in eight innings (4 Tests).
During this period, he only scored two fifties, while his only century came in India’s MCG Test win over Australia last year.
A total of 17 matches played since February 2021, out of which five were played in India, in the nine innings that Rahane played, against England and New Zealand, he managed to score just one fifty.
He said: “As a batsman, it is always challenging especially if you are batting as a middle-order. For openers it’s easy. It’s because of a hard ball but when a batsman gets out, we tend to think where did we do wrong.”
Rahane said he didn’t want to prove anything and that he'll never give up his dream to play for India.
“I'm not here to prove anything to anyone. For me, it's all about I think obviously scoring runs and just believing in my ability. One thing is for sure, I will never give up. For me, still, the dream is to play for India. But, at the same time, I just want to do well for Mumbai, and help Mumbai win each and every game. I'm just focusing on that,” the veteran batter added.
Whether Rahane is successful in making a comeback in the Indian team remains to be seen.
(Indian Express/Times of India inputs)
