Veteran India batter, Ajinkya Rahane has recently commented on the dip in Test averages of himself, Virat Kohli, and Cheteswar Pujara.
Rahane has been out of the selectors’ favor in the national Test side and is now playing in the Ranji Trophy for his side, Mumbai.
Recently, Rahane scored a double ton against Hyderabad at the MCA Cricket Ground in Mumbai. He scored 204 runs from 261 balls.
However, Rahane still dreams of donning the India jersey so as to be able to play the longest format of cricket.
In an interview, Rahane cited some interesting reasons why the averages of several big players have dipped in recent years in Test cricket.
Rahane’s reasons on why Test averages of big players have dropped in Test cricket
There was no mistake (in his style of batting that his average dipped), we were playing in India for the last three years. If you look at the players who are batting at number three, four or five their average has come down because of the wickets. Pujji-Virat and my (Pujara, Kohli) averages have come down.
Adding further, he said,
I don’t think there were many mistakes; it’s not every time that we are committing the mistakes. Sometimes the wickets are such, this is no excuse but everyone saw the kind of wickets we had in India.
Rahane also wants to become his former self and is going through his diaries to assess what he had done right during his formative years and wants to emulate that now.
I have a habit of making notes whenever I have scored or not, I’m going through that now. I have scored whenever the team wanted to in crucial positions and we have won games. Double ton is special, the way I was timing the ball. The way I wanted to, it has gone that way. I thought about my old innings of under-19 and Ranji Trophy. I want to go as close to that.
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