We are just a night’s sleep away from the beginning of the first Test match between India and South Africa. India still has a lot of questions to address, one of them is whether Ajinkya Rahane will be playing the first Test.
The first match of the India’s tour of South Africa will begin on the Boxing Day, i.e. the 26th December. And before the match begins on Sunday, the team’s vice-captain KL Rahul attended the virtual press conference on Friday. There he also talked about whether Rahane could be included in the Playing XI.
Even KL Rahul didn’t gave a proper indication of how India’s first XI could look like. However, Rahane’s statistics do not speak for himself. The right-hand batsman averages around 19.56 in the last 12 Test matches that he has played.
Rahane hundred came against Australia in Melbourne Test last year. But ever since then the middle-order batsman has just gone downward game after game. As a result, he was removed from the vice-captaincy role before the team departed for the South Africa series.
KL Rahul says Tough Call to drop Ajinkya Rahane
KL Rahul stated that it is a very very difficult decision to make regarding Ajinkya Rahane. He continued that Rahane has played crucial knocks for the Indian team and is a very valuable member of the team.
He also praised Rahane’s match winning knock of 112 runs in Melbourne as the captain of the team, and also the equally crucial 61 runs in the Lord’s Test, which includes a great partnership with Pujara in the match.
From the 1992-93 season to 2016-17, the number of Test wins in the last 29 years in South Africa is only three. Of these, only Mahendra Singh Dhoni led the Indian team to a series draw with the 3 match Test series ending 1-1.
But this time the situation is completely different. Even though South Africa has maintained a good record in Home, but this time, the story is completely different as team’s star players like AB de Villiers, Morne Morkel, Hasim Amla, Faf du Plessis and Dale Steyn all have retired from International cricket.
Add to that the injury to their one of the crucial pace bowler Anrich Nortje. The ‘Speed Star’ has already dropped out of the Test series due to a knee injury.
India to go with 5-bowlers
Add to that, KL Rahul hinting towards India going into the match with 5 bowlers. Rahul stated that a number of teams have started playing with five bowlers and it has helped India a lot and when you have that quality z you better use it, stated Rahul.
Even though India will be going into the match with a strong bowling department, it is the batting line-up which has troubled India. While sometimes it works really good, but in some cases, the team faces batting collapse and thus will for sure need to strengthen the batting line-up, especially the middle-order.
