“Not going to make any comments”: Ajinkya Rahane dodges question around who will Virat Kohli replace in Mumbai Test

Ajinkya Rahane dodges question: The stand-in Indian captain might get dropped in the second Test of the series at his home ground.

Stand-in India captain Ajinkya Rahane believes that he “tried his best” and that his team couldn’t have done anything different in their attempt of forcing a victory in the recently concluded drawn first Test against New Zealand in Kanpur.

“Not really. I tried my best. Very good game of cricket. They played really well. We came back really well after the first session. We wanted to get that partnership going. We were looking to bowl 5-6 overs in the end, but we needed that partnership to carry on. I don’t think we could have done anything different,” Rahane told Star Sports during the post-match presentation ceremony.

India, who needed six wickets in the final session to win the match, managed to pick five but failed to find a way to dismiss either of Rachin Ravindra and Ajaz Patel. While bad light aided the visitors a bit towards the end, one can’t take away anything from Ravindra as the 22-year old debutant was exceptional in keeping India at bay.

“The chat with the umpires was about the light. As a fielding team, you want to bowl more overs. As a batting unit, you don’t want to bat in that situation. The chat was about the light but umpires made the call [of offering light to the batters] and I thought they were right,” Rahane said.

Ajinkya Rahane dodges question around who will Virat Kohli replace in Mumbai Test

Coming in to bat in difficult situations in both innings of his debut Test, Rahane’s Mumbai teammate Shreyas Iyer didn’t just rescue his team twice at the Green Park but also might have cemented his position in the middle-order. Following his 105 (171) in the first innings with a 65 (125) on Day 4, Iyer became the first-ever Indian cricketer to score a century and half-century on debut.

“I am really happy for Shreyas [Iyer]. He had to wait a long time for his Test debut. He batted really well. The way he works, his record in first-class cricket is really good,” Rahane said.

Rahane, who is arguably in the middle of his worst batting phase in Test cricket, managed to dodge the elephant in the room. With regular captain Virat Kohli set to join the team for the second Test in Mumbai, Rahane might have to make way for Kohli in the Playing XI.

“Virat [Kohli] is coming back for the next game. We’ll have to wait and see till the Mumbai game. I am not going to make any comments but the management will make a call [on who Kohli will replace],” Rahane concluded.