ENG vs IND: Is Ajinkya Rahane’s form a concern? Batting coach Vikram Rathour says THIS
Team India vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane hasn’t been in great touch in the ongoing five-match Test series against England and his poor form continued on Day 4 of the fourth Test at the Oval as he got out for a duck after being trapped LBW by Chris Woakes.
Apart from that knock of 61 runs in the second innings of the Lord’s Test, Rahane hasn’t got many scores to show averaging 18.17 in seven inningsand has faced criticism for his form and his place in the side. However, batting coch Vikram Rathour reckoned that they haven’t reached a place where his form should become a concern.
Speaking at the press conference after the fourth day’s play, Vikram denied when asked if Rahane’s form is a concern saying, “Not at this point.”
“As I said earlier also, when you are playing cricket for a long time, you will have phases where you will not get runs. That is the time when we need to support the player as a team. As we saw with Pujara also, he has played a couple of important innings for us. We are hoping Ajinkya will get back into form and still play a major role in the Indian team’s batting. I do not think we have arrived at that point where Rahane’s form should become a concern,” Rathour said.
“When you are playing such an important series like this one, playing in the conditions which are tough for batting and we are playing against such a disciplined bowling attack, which has been bowling so well, so as a batting unit, the technique is the last thing you should be thinking about. I do not think we are looking at technique right now, there is time to look for it, I do not think mid-series or mid-game is the time for that,” he further added.
Apart from Rahane, the visitors had a field day with the bat as everyone chipped in with some scores from skipper Virat Kohli with a 44-run knock to fifties by Rishabh Pant and Shardul Thakur and late cameos by Umesh Yadav and Jasprit Bumrah as India piled on 466 runs in the second innings leaving 368 runs to chase for the hosts to win the match.
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