Ajinkya Rahane last 10 innings runs: The Indian captain looked good in the middle before playing a false shot at the Green Park.
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During the first day of the first Test of the ongoing New Zealand’s tour of India in Kanpur, India captain Ajinkya Rahane failed to convert his start into a substantial score in a situation when the team needed him to continue.
Coming in to bat at No. 4 in the 31st over, Rahane looked quite comfortable in the middle scoring 35 (63) with the help of six boundaries. Confident in his approach against both the pacers and spinners, Rahane had given signs of ending his lean patch with some eye-catching shots in the second session.
Rahane, who has been guilty of wasting his starts on multiple occasions in the last year or so, ended up playing a false shot in the 50th over. In what was an ordinary delivery outside the off-stump, Rahane’s attempt of playing a back-foot punch backfired primarily due to the low-bounce on the pitch.
In the process, all Rahane did was chopped the ball back on to the stumps to generate a wicket out of nowhere. Given the bounce (or the lack of it) on the delivery, Rahane shouldn’t have looked to punch the delivery.
Ajinkya Rahane last 10 innings runs
In his last 11 Test innings*, Rahane has scored just 212 runs at a paltry average of 19.27 with a solitary half-century. With India playing without numerous first-choice players today, Rahane was expected to stand tall on his potential.
Bowling his 13th over, New Zealand all-rounder Kyle Jamieson picked his third wicket in Rahane. Opening the bowling with Tim Southee after Rahane won the toss and chose to bat, Jamieson had earlier dismissed the Indian openers in Mayank Agarwal (13) and Shubman Gill (52).
In a bit of a spot of bother, the hosts would be hoping for debutant batter Shreyas Iyer and all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja to bail them out of trouble in this innings.
* – Numbers have been updated after Rahane’s failure in the second innings of the Kanpur Test.
