IND vs AFG: Ajinkya Rahane doesn't want to take Afghanistan lightly

In the absence of Virat Kohli, Indian team will take the field against Afghanistan in the historic Test with Ajinkya Rahane leading the power-packed line-up. While Afghanistan players are practicing hard by shunning the media interactions, Indian team is eager to spoil the visitors debut Test plans.

Ajinkya Rahane in the pre-match press conference said that cricket is the game of uncertainties and suggested his teammates to be ruthless when they take on the Asian counterparts. Afghanistan are new-comers in Test cricket but the Indian captain doesn’t want his teammates to take the visitors lightly.

“We are not going to take Afghanistan lightly. They have a decent team…bowlers (are good). As a Test team, we cannot take anyone for granted because cricket is a funny game. We want to go out there and be ruthless. Yes, we respect them as our opponents but it’s important for us to go out there and give more than our 100. We just need to be ruthless,” Rahane said as quoted by News 18.

Rahane reacts to Asghar’s comment

Afghanistan skipper Asghar Stanikzai recently quoted that his team’s spinners are way superior than Indian spinners. However, this quote didn’t go well with Karun Nair and Dinesh Karthik. They hit back at Asghar for his comment. Indian skipper Rahane also followed the cue and stated that Indian spinners are way experienced.

“Every member will like to believe that their team is good. We all know the stats but we don’t want to focus on the stats. Ashwin, Jadeja and Kuldeep are experienced spinners. On a given day, it’s the mindset that makes a difference,” Rahane added.

Most of the Indian players recently played IPL and the skipper wants his teammates to train their minds in order to get into the Test mode from the shortest format, “We have had a couple of practice sessions in Bangalore and it was fantastic. Coming back from IPL, it’s important that we train our minds. Getting back to Test mode from T20 is about tuning our minds rather than focusing on skills. We are not going to take Afghanistan lightly.”

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