Vikram Rathour: Team Management Yet To Arrive At The Point Where Ajinkya Rahane’s Form Should Become A Concern

Sep 6, 2021 at 3:02 PM

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Vikram Rathour: Team Management Yet To Arrive At The Point Where Ajinkya Rahane’s Form Should Become A Concern

Vikram Rathour has said the stage has not come yet where the team management starts worrying about the form of the team’s vice-captain. Ajinkya Rahane has been struggling to score runs in the ongoing Test series against England. Though he got a fighting fifty at Lord’s in the second Test, after that knock, the India vice-captain is drawing flak for his lack of runs.

So far, Ajinkya Rahane has batted in seven innings and has managed to score 109 runs at an average of 15.57. On Sunday, he was dismissed for an eight-ball duck in the second innings of the Oval Test. Earlier in the first innings, he scored just 14 off 47 deliveries.

Ajinkya Rahane. (Photo Source: Getty Images)
Ajinkya Rahane. (Photo Source: Getty Images)

Vikram Rathour: Team Management Hasn’t Arrived At The Point Where Ajinkya Rahane’d Form Should Become A Concern

While the dip in Ajinkya Rahane’s form has become one of the talking points of this series, India batting coach Vikram Rathour has said the stage has not come yet where the team management starts worrying about the form of the team’s vice-captain. During the post-match virtual presser, Vikram Rathour was asked if Ajinkya Rahane’s form is a concern.

In reply, he said, “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,” Vikram Rathour further said.

Vikram Rathour- Batting coach - PTI
Vikram Rathour- Batting coach – PTI

“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,” Vikram Rathour added.

Earlier on Sunday, Shardul Thakur (60 of 72) struck his second fifty of the match and shared a hundred-run stand with Rishabh Pant (50 of 106) to put India in a strong position. The visitors posted a mammoth total of 446 in the second innings, setting a 368-run target for England.

Rory Burns And Haseeb Hameed Ensure England Don’t Lose Any Wicket On The Penultimate Day Of The Penultimate Test

In reply, Haseeb Hameed and Rory Burns provided the hosts a solid start. At stumps, England’s score read 77/0, still needing 291 runs for the win with all ten wickets in hand. For the hosts, Rory Burns (31*) and Haseeb Hameed (43*) are at the crease.

Rory Burns, Haseeb Hameed | Photo: England Cricket / ICC
Rory Burns, Haseeb Hameed | Photo: England Cricket / ICC

England is up against a herculean task– chasing down 368 against India at the Oval to go 2-1 up in the series. A century from Rohit Sharma and fifties from Cheteshwar Pujara, Shardul Thakur, and Rishabh Pant in India’s second innings saw India post a strong total of 466, which means that England needs to pull off a record highest run chase at the venue.

With niggles to Mohammed Shami and Ishant Sharma, as captain Virat Kohli had pointed out at the toss, India included Shardul Thakur and Umesh Yadav in the XI which paid rich dividends as both of them had an impact. While Shardul Thakur scored the fifties in both innings, Umesh Yadav picked up 3 scalps in England’s 1st innings.

Suryakumar Yadav or Hanuma Vihari are waiting in the wings and may get a chance in the last Test. Although he is yet to play Tests, Suryakumar Yadav has a compelling record in first-class cricket, scoring 5326 runs in 77 first-class games at 44.01, with 14 tons.

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