Indian cricketer Dinesh Karthik feels that dropping Ajinkya Rahane for the second Test in Mumbai against New Zealand will help ease some of the pressure on him.
Ajinkya Rahane’s place in the team has been under scanner due to continuous failures and with him scoring just 39 runs in the first Test against New Zealand in Kanpur, things have become more serious.
Ever since he scored a hundred against Australia in Melbourne, there are hardly any innings that Ajinkya Rahane would be proud of.
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The right-handed batter has an unenviable average of just over 19 in 2021 and with Shreyas Iyer scoring a century and half-century on debut and Suryakumar Yadav warming the bench, Rahane's spot in the team is in danger.
It’s quite obvious that one of the batters from the playing XI of the first match will have to make way for skipper Virat Kohli in the second Test and there are a lot of speculations about who that batter will be.
While many are of the opinion that there shouldn’t be any headache regarding the selection for the second Test as Rahane being in poor form should make way for Virat Kohli, some say the Indian Test vice-captain should get one more chance to prove himself.
However, Dinesh Karthik feels that Ajinkya Rahane will be under tremendous pressure especially after the heroics of Shreyas Iyer on debut and he might be one who’ll get dropped for the Mumbai Test.
The wicket-keeper batter recalled how Rahane came back strongly after he was dropped for a game during the South Africa tour in 2018 and remarked that there’s no harm if the latter gets dropped for a game.
"With Shreyas Iyer coming in and doing so well, I think the pressure will obviously be on Rahane and he might be the one to be dropped. This has happened during a tour of South Africa when Rahane was dropped for a game before he again came back. There is no harm if Rahane's dropped for a game," Dinesh Karthik told Cricbuzz.
Karthik while lauding Shreyas Iyer for bailing Team India out of the trouble in the first Test against New Zealand pointed out that Ajinkya Rahane has failed to score runs for a long time and dropped him from the playing XI will only ease the pressure on him.
"Iyer has literally taken India to a safe zone in this Test on his own. He's done really well. And It's not like Rahane has not been among the runs in 1-2 Tests. It has been going on for a long time now. I don't think it's such a bad thing for him to be dropped. It will ease some of the pressure on him," he said.
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Dinesh Karthik said that it’s not only Ajinkya Rahane who is under pressure but Cheteshwar Pujara will also be under some sort of baggage as he is averaging mid-20s since the start of 2020.
He concluded by saying that both Rahane and Pujara would be aware that they haven’t performed according to the expectations.
"I do think a similar sort of baggage is there on (Cheteshwar) Pujara too. He hasn't got a hundred in a long time. And since the start of 2020, he too has averaged in the mid-20s. These are two players who have set their standards very high. They would know they haven't performed according to expectations,” he concluded.
Team India will now face New Zealand in the second Test match in Mumbai on 3rd December.
(Cricbuzz inputs)
