Ravi Shastri explains the reason of dropping Ajinkya Rahane in the Tests

The head coach of India Ravi Shastri has given the detailed explanation of dropping Ajinkya Rahane in the first couple of Test matches against South Africa. The skipper Virat Kohli had attracted a lot of criticism for including Rohit Sharma at the expense of Rahane in Cape Town and Centurion. Many of the former cricketers lashed at him for benching their best batsmen of the last tour and questioned his captaincy during the course of the series as well.

As it turned out, Rohit failed to score in all the four innings and unfortunately India also lost both the matches alongwith the series as well. Rahane was included in the playing XI for the dead rubber in Johannesburg and delivered a perfect performance with the bat in the second innings which eventually helped the team in winning the match and avoid the embarassing whitewash at the hands of the home side.

Men in Blue carried the same momentum in the ODI series and stunned everyone with a clinical display in all the departments of the game to trump South Africa by six wickets in Durban.

Rohit averaged more than 200

Ravi Shastri, in his interview to Times Now, lashed out at everyone who questioned the team’s selection during the contest in whites. He also explained that Rahane was struggling throughout the last year and it was Rohit Sharma who was scoring runs in abundance. “Right from the beginning, there was no doubt in the mind of the team management that Rohit was the batsman in form while Ajinkya was struggling, not just on the field but in the nets too. Rohit was averaging more than 200 in Tests and had scored around 1200-odd runs in ODIs,” he said.

He also pointed out that all the talk of him being preferred over Rahane was a no-brainer. “So, what does the team tell him? Your runs don’t matter because that’s how it works? Performances count and that makes this whole talking point a no-brainer. We all know what Ajinkya is capable of, but before coming here, he was averaging about 30 all through 2017,” Shastri continued.

The 55-year-old cleared that by the time the third Test arrived, Ajinkya had started regaining his confidence in the nets and that was the reason he played. “Sometime during the Centurion Test, Ajinkya was getting back into his rhythm. He was knocking well in the nets and Rohit was struggling, so we decided to do whatever looked better at that point in time and Ajinkya was in the eleven. And he scored at the Wanderers,” he concluded.

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