After some long wait, Indian cricketer Ajinkya Rahane is finally able to play a big knock in Test cricket. On the day one of the ongoing third Test between the hosts England and the visitors India at Trent Bridge (Nottingham), Rahane played a crucial 81-run knock to save the visiting side in the tough situation.

It was Rahane’s first 50+ score in last 14 Test innings. The Indian Test vice-captain came to bat when the team was struggling on 82/3 and played one of the crucial roles to secure a good first innings total for the visiting team.

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Before getting caught out brilliantly at the first slip, Rahane scored 81 off 131 balls with 12 fours. Talking about his batting improvement, Rahane claimed that he analysed his batting after failing the last Test at Lord’s.

At the end of the day one of the third Test, Rahane told bcci.tv, “After the last Test match I sat down in the dressing room and analysed all my good innings, how I played them, what was my mindset, how I approached those innings.

“Success and failures are there as a professional cricketer but the intent has to be there. And if the mindset and attitude is right results will automatically follow.

“Definitely, I was not getting too bogged down after the first Two Tests. The belief was that if the ball was there hit I will hit. Thinking too much about the end result put pressure. The aim to play one ball at a time and play it on merit.”

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Coming to bat on 82/3, Rahane put a crucial 159-run partnership with the in-form skipper Virat Kohli for the fourth wicket and opened a good platform in Indian innings. While Rahane scored 81 runs, Kohli just missed a deserving century as he scored 97 runs.

Talking about their crucial partnership, Rahane said, “Our aim was to build partnership when Virat and I were batting, and as we settled down the focus was to make runs. That partnership was really crucial for us. The Intent was to rotate strike from the beginning. I have always felt that when you go into a shell you can’t play your game. We capitalised on the bad balls.”