Rahane is among the top 11 highest run-scorers in IPL, with 3820 runs in 140 games, including two centuries.
Ajinkya Rahane
MUMBAI-based cricketers like Rohit Sharma, Shreyas Iyer, Prithvi Shaw and Suryakumar Yadav are an integral part of their respective IPL teams. However, that's not the case for India's Test vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane, who shifted from the Rajasthan Royals (RR) to Delhi Capitals (DC) this season. The Iyer-led DC has won five out of six games so far but Rahane is yet to play for his new team.
Former India captain and national chief selector Dilip Vengsarkar believes Rahane, 32, must work harder on his game. "Ajinkya needs to spend more time in the middle whenever he gets an opportunity. He has been around for long to realise what it takes to perform. He should not repeat his mistakes," Vengsarkar told mid-day on Friday.
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Rahane is among the top 11 highest run-scorers in IPL, with 3820 runs in 140 games, including two centuries.
"Ajinkya is a quality player who, over the years, has not been handled properly by the selectors. He has also been an inconsistent performer in the last couple of seasons and that hasn't helped his cause either.
"In cricket, the bottomline is that a batsman has to dish out consistent performances match after match, which frankly, Ajinkya has not done. I guess he's too much into the technicalities of batsmanship and when you develop that sort of mental make-up, you lose out on the basic goal of scoring runs," added Vengsarkar, who played 116 Tests and 129 ODIs for the country.
Dilip Vengsarkar
"When your performance drops, the confidence takes a beating as well. Consequently, one starts avoiding playing matches like Ajinkya did last season when he preferred to go to the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore in the midst of Ranji Trophy season instead of slugging it out in the middle for Mumbai," said Vengsarkar, 64.
Rahane scored just 109 runs in three Ranji Trophy games last season.
Meanwhile, Rahane's coach Vidyadhar Paradkar, 74, is convinced his ward in one of the best batsmen in white-ball cricket too. "Ajinkya is equally talented in the shorter format. He can play shots all along the ground and also easily converts singles into twos.
"He's a match-winner. Don't forget he has scored two hundreds in the IPL. Ajinkya's energetic fielding is a big plus too, so I don't know why a player of his ability is sitting on the bench. If the rules permit, and if he has an offer from another team, he should leave DC," Paradkar added.
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