Vikram Rathour puts his weight behind Ajinkya Rahane, says every player goes through lean phase

Team India batting coach Vikram Rathour has firmly put his weight behind senior player Ajinkya Rahane and has said the management is not worried about the vice-captain’s low returns in the ongoing five-match Test series versus England. The right-hand batter scored 14 and 0 at the Oval Test and the critics have started to point fingers at his continuous dip in numbers in recent times.

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Barring the Lords Test, where he managed to score a fifty, Rahane has not been able to contribute much with the bat in the other three Tests. With reserve players like Hanuma Vihari, Mayank Agarwal, Suryakumar Yadav, and Prithvi Shaw waiting in the wings, the talks to drop Rahane for the next Test are growing louder each passing day.

But Rathour is backing Rahane to come good and said every player goes through lean phases like these. "Not at this point. As I said earlier also, when you are playing cricket for a long time, you will have phases where you will not get runs. That is the time when we need to support the player as a team. As we saw with Pujara also, he has played a couple of important innings for us.”

"We are hoping Ajinkya will get back into form and still play a major role in the Indian team's batting. I do not think we have arrived at that point where Rahane's form should become a concern," said Rathour during a virtual press conference.

Rahane has just scored 109 runs in four Tests at a dismal average of 15.57. His numbers are the lowest for an Indian batter in the ongoing Test series. But Rathour’s backing and management’s support puts the doubts to rest of the India vice-captain being dropped from the fifth Test.