Ajinkya Rahane’s coach Pravin Amre has revealed that his ward did his own study about the Australian batsmen before the MCG Test. Rahane was under pressure after the team was bundled out for a paltry score of 36 runs in the second innings of the Adelaide Test match.
However, Rahane led from the front in the second Test match and took the team to a memorable and a historic win. The right-hander scored a fine knock of 112 runs in the first innings, which helped his team take a crucial lead of 131 runs.
Meanwhile, Rahane was spot on with his field placement and bowling changes. He had a plan for almost every Australian batsmen and whatever he touched, turned to gold in the second Test. Rahane had brought on Ravichandran Ashwin in the first session of the opening day and it paid dividends for the team.
Rahane is known to keep his calm even in difficult situations and he was able to get the best out of his team. The 32-year-old also played with five specialist bowlers and the strategy was successful after Umesh Yadav’s injury left the team with a bowler short in the second innings.
In fact, it wasn’t easy for Rahane as he hadn’t got the big runs for the team in the recent past and thus he was under the cosh.
“I wanted to be in his shoes coming into that 2nd Test. The series before New Zealand was there. He didn’t have a great run there. In Adelaide, in the first innings he was involved in the Virat Kohli run-out. In the second innings he was out for 0. There were butterflies in my stomach,” Amre said.
“It wasn’t an easy task. Getting leadership after that, we might have different leaders in different situations but the guy answerable will always be the captain. So he handled that responsibility greatly because he did his own study.
“I think he must have done a really good study about Australian batting. Because Australia are always vulnerable against off-spinners”.
Ajinkya Rahane was able to prove his mettle and showed he is a shrewd captain. Rahane will look to continue the same kind of leadership in the remaining two Test matches to help his team retain the Border-Gavaskar trophy.
Rahane deserves a lot of credit for getting the team to bounce back in the series after the ignominious defeat at Adelaide. Furthermore, the tourists were able to come up with a collective team effort.
The third Test will take place at Sydney Cricket Ground from January 7.
