India’s stand-in skipper in Tests, Ajinkya Rahane’s position in the limited overs squad is quite uncertain and he revealed that he will have a chat with the national selection panel in order to get a clearer picture about his mode of preparation for the upcoming Test series in England.
After the one-off Afghanistan Test match, Rahane will be free for a decent amount of time as he has been dropped from the limited-overs side which is going to visit the UK first. The Test series against England is scheduled to start on August 1 after a limited-overs series featuring three T20 Internationals and as many number of ODIs beginning July 3.
When Ajinkya was asked what will he do for the next one and half months, a normally defensive Rahane replied, “See, I don’t know what’s going to happen after this Test match? But yeah, I will definitely have a word with the selectors.”
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While there are chances that Jinx will play some games for India A, there’s no official word on the matter. Talking about his preparations, Rahane said, “But I will start my preparation in Mumbai as I always do at the Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC). I always prepare intensely before each and every series but as of now the focus on this Test match. Each and every Test counts and we need to win this one.”
Afghanistan might be newcomers but Rahane emphasized on the fact that Team India will attempt to play ruthless cricket. He said, “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.”
Like Dinesh Karthik, Rahane also didn’t want to read too much into Afghan captain Ashgar Stanikzai’s statement about the visiting spinners being superior to the Indian trio of Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, and Kuldeep Yadav.
Rahane felt, “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.”
