Ajinkya Rahane’s downfall has been one of the most heartbreaking scenarios for die hard fans of Test cricket. Even a few years ago, the Maharashtra born was one of the most dependable Indian cricketers in the longest formats of the game. But the long break that the players got due to the COVID-19 outburst changed the fate of many players and Ajinkya Rahane was one of those players.
Skip to today, Rahane is finding it hard to even make it to India’s test playing XI. The veteran batsman has given disaster class performances one after the other in the last few test series of India and it will now be very difficult for him to make a comeback. There are many promising cricketers like Shreyas Iyer and Hanuma Vihari who are waiting to get their much deserved chance and if things stay like this, Ajinkya Rahane will have to be the first player to make way for them. It is not that he has not been given a chance; in fact he has been given plenty. But it seems like he has just lost the knack that he once possessed.
Amid these difficult times, former Indian cricketer Zaheer Khan has given him some much needed advice. Addressing Ajinkya Rahane’s problem, Zaheer Khan said that as a professional cricketer one needs to face these challenges head on.
He said, “There have been mixed performances for Ajinkya Rahane. There is no doubt about it. He is under immense pressure. That is the fact. For any cricketer, to go through this kind of phase, you’ve got to have that mental toughness to come out of it. The good part is that you are still there and you are one inning away. As a batsman or cricketer, you should have such a belief.
“Through my personal experience, if someone is going through a rough patch, you’ve got to have that belief that you are just one inning or one good knock away from that good performance. If you hit that, things change very fast as well. This is what I would advise Ajinkya at this stage. As a cricketer, you need to accept these challenges and take them head-on,” Zaheer Khan concluded.
Zaheer Khan gives this advice to Ajinkya Rahane to overcome his rough patch
