- Friday, April 26, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
THE place of India Test vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane in the playing XI has come under serious scanner following his low scores in the ongoing series against England but batting coach Vikram Rathour is of the opinion that the team management is not too worried over the former’s loss of form.
The right-handed middle-order batsman has scored 109 runs in seven outings in the series so far, less than what lower-order batsman Shardul Thakur has scored (117) in the ongoing fourth Test match at the Oval alone.
Rahane has scored only one fifty in the series which came at Lord’s and failed to open his account in the second innings at the Oval when the team desperately needed him to score some runs.
Former India Test player VVS Laxman was among the critics who wanted Rahane to be dropped before the final Test starting in Manchester on September 10 but according to Rathour, a former India opener, Rahane needed the right kind of support to hit form.
“When you are playing cricket for a such a long time you will have phases where you will not get runs,” Rathour said after Sunday’s play at the Oval.
“That is the time as a team we need to back them and support them as much as we can.
“We are hoping that Ajinkya will get back into form and he will still play a major role in Indian team’s batting. I don’t think we have arrived to that point that it should become a concern,” the coach said.
Rahane, who has played 77 Tests so far with nearly 5,000 runs, scored his last hundred 20 innings back in Australia where he led India to a series victory in the absence of regular captain Virat Kohli who went on paternity leave.
Questions are being asked over Rahane’s technique but Rathour said it was not the right time to pick holes in the batting of the 33-year-old batsman.
“There is time and place to work on technique, I don’t think it is mid-series or mid-game,” Rathour, who played six Tests for India in 1996-97, said.
At the Oval, Rahane was demoted the batting order in both innings with spinner-all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja going ahead of him. Rahane came out to bat at N0.6 instead of his usual No.5 and scored 14 and zero.
While it was being questioned whether Rahane was being shielded, Rathour said the move was made to ensure a left-right combination in the middle order, which has looked fragile due to not-so-great forms of captain Kohli and No.3 Cheteshwar Pujara.
“Jadeja was batting with a lot of control so as a team we wanted to see how it affects our balance and momentum in the middle … Whether it would be a long-term plan, we will have to wait for that,” Rathour said.
In the 2018 Test series in England, Rahane scored 357 runs in 10 innings at an average of 33.57 with two half-centuries and the highest score of 81.
