Ahead of the Boxing Day Test against Australia, India’s stand-in captain Ajinkya Rahane assured that there will be no added pressure on the openers to score crucial runs for the team in the longest format of the game. India had suffered early jolts in both innings of the pink-ball Test as the Australian pace attack made sure that the visitors remained deprived of a good start in the day-night Test.
Prithvi Shaw was the first to fell in both the innings for the visitors. He managed a duck and four in the two innings of the day-night Test. While Mayank Agarwal showed some intent in the first innings, he couldn’t manage to go past the storm created by Jos Hazlewood in the second innings. However, Rahane opines that he wants to give his opening batsmen enough freedom and hopes to see their natural game in the Boxing Day Test.
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As per the quotes in ANI, Ajinkya Rahane said, “See the opener’s role not only in Australia but everywhere is really crucial and I don’t want to put any pressure on our openers. Having said that as mentioned, the openers’ role is very crucial, when you get that partnership going it becomes really easy for the coming batsmen. We definitely miss Virat (Kohli), obviously when you have him it’s a great thing so we will definitely miss him as he is not there.”
On Wednesday, in order to revamp preparation for the Boxing-day Test, the Indian all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja was sharpening his skills with both bat and ball. Rahane said the team’s preparation has been really good for the comeback game, and asserted that it was just a bad session in the pink-ball Test which cost India the game.
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Elaborating the same, Ajinkya said, “The last couple of net sessions, the preparations have been really good. Talking about the last Test, we had two good days and just one bad session where we lost it completely. We want to stick to the same plans that we had in the first Test.”
