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'We just don't look at champion performances': R Ashwin defends Ajinkya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara ahead of WTC final
Throwing his weight firmly behind Ajinkya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara, Ashwin said the wealth of experience those two have gives a lot of depth and stability to the Indian batting.
India’s two experienced campaigners Ajinkya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara may have had a below-par home series against England but off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin believes unnecessarily questioning their form is ‘forgetting’ what they can do when in full flow.
Throwing his weight firmly behind Rahane and Pujara, Ashwin said the wealth of experience those two have gives a lot of depth and stability to the Indian batting.
“When things are not going right, we always feel a new commodity or a different commodity will do much better. When you are talking about people who have played in excess of 50 Test matches (Rahane) and played in excess of 75 Test matches (Pujara) and have been champion performers, we are forgetting things,” Ashwin told the New Indian Express.
India’s highest run-scorer in the 2-1 Test series win in Australia, Pujara, managed to scored only half-century in the four home Tests against England.
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The story was somewhat similar for Test vice captain Rahane too. His best was 67 in the series against England. The right-hander managed to score only 112 runs in four Tests.
Ashwin, however, pointed out the performance of Rahane against Australia when he led India’s comeback with a brilliant hundred at the MCG to square the series.
“We just don’t look at the champion performance that Rahane produced on the way to the greatest Test series we played in Australia. He batted beautifully and got a hundred (at MCG),” Ashwin said.
Another aspect abut both Rahane and Pujara that will keep giving sleepless nights to the Indian fans is their lack of match practice going into the World Test Championship final against New Zealand starting on June 18 in Southampton.
While most of the top Indian cricketers were playing in the IPL after England series, Rahane and Pujara were warming the benches for in Delhi Capitals and Chennai Super Kings.
Rahane did play two games but Pujara is yet to make his debut for CSK.
