The Indian skipper came out in defence of Ajinkya Rahane’s form, stating that the focus of the team is to gauge on how much strength players brings collectively.
Ajinkya Rahane may have finished as India’s leading run-getter (1159 runs) in the first cycle (2019-2021) of the World Test Championship. But his form since the start of 2020 hasn’t been the greatest.
The Indian Test vice-captain has amassed a mere 540 runs at an average of 27.00 since January 2020. He has only two fifty-plus scores in 21 innings in this period – 112 against Australia in the second Test at MCG in December 2020 and 67 against England in Chennai in the second Test earlier this year.
He did score a good 49 in the first innings against New Zealand in the WTC final, but he couldn’t convert that into a big score. In the first Test against England at Trent Bridge, Rahane was run out for just 5. That continued his concerning record in England. He averages 28.41 after scoring 641 runs from 12 Test matches in England.
“I do not think that is an area of concern. Our basic focus is not to think about where are people individually at the moment, collectively how much strength they bring into the team is our focus.
As a batting unit, we are looking to perform in difficult conditions so that we are in winning positions and someone is going to put their hand up every game,”
Kohli said saying in the pre-match press conference ahead of the second Test match.
India move to Lord’s for the second Test of the five-match series against England. Rahane scored a match-winning ton at this iconic venue back in 2014, and he is the only batsman among the current set of players to have his name upon the Honours Board. However, he had a poor outing in 2018 where he returned with scores of 18 & 13.
