The veteran Indian batter, Ajinkya Rahane managed to score a brilliant double century (204 runs from 261 balls) while plying his trade for Mumbai in their Ranji Trophy match against Hyderabad at the MCA Cricket Ground in Mumbai. The veteran batter still dreams of donning the Indian jersey to play Test cricket but shared an interesting angle as to why the average scores for several big players have dipped in recent years.

Rahane cited the examples of stalwarts like Virat Kohli and Test specialist Cheteshwar Pujara and claimed that the nature of Indian pitches has brought down the averages of the three batters.

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During a recent conversation with the Indian Express, Ajinkya Rahane said, “There was no mistake (in his style of batting that his average dipped), we were playing in India for the last three years. If you look at the players who are batting at number three, four or five their average has come down because of the wickets. Pujji-Virat and my (Pujara, Kohli) averages have come down.”

He further added, “I don’t think there were many mistakes; it’s not every time that we are committing the mistakes. Sometimes the wickets are such, this is no excuse but everyone saw the kind of wickets we had in India.”

Talking about his recent form, Ajinkya Rahane explained that he has been looking up his old diaries to take cues on what notes he prepared on his old innings. He also added that he would like to return to playing as he did back in his formative years.

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Ajinkya Rahane concluded by saying, “I have a habit of making notes whenever I have scored or not, I’m going through that now. I have scored whenever the team wanted to in crucial positions and we have won the games. Double ton is special, the way I was timing the ball. The way I wanted to, it has gone that way. I thought about my old innings of under-19 and Ranji Trophy. I want to go as close to that.”