Ajinkya Rahane's confidence is shot, no surprises that he got out for 0: Sunil Gavaskar

Indian Test vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane has been out of form in the ongoing Test match series against England. He has registered a string of low scores owing to which questions have been raised on his place in the side. The Former India cricketers and renowned cricket analysts, Sunil Gavaskar and Sanjay Manjrekar have opened up on Rahane’s current form.

Ajinkya Rahane has scored just 109 runs from seven innings. Barring the knock of 61 runs in the second Test, the batter has been unable to put big scores. Gavaskar reckoned that Rahane is lacking confidence because of his lean patch.

“That was a bad shot for a man out of form. to be playing across the line towards square leg. There is no way the ball was going to meet the ball. His confidence is shot. He was not confident before because he hadn’t scored runs apart from that 60 at Lord’s. At Leeds, he hadn’t got runs,” Gavaskar said on The Sony Sports Network.

Ravindra Jadeja was sent ahead of Ajinkya Rahane in both innings of the fourth Test against England. This move perplexed the cricket on-lookers as they reacted to it in numbers. However, even that didn’t quite help in changing the situation much. Gavaskar thus pointed that considering the form of Rahane, this decision was something that India could have avoided.

“What it’s done to the psychology of a player – is that it says ‘look, we are not showing any confidence in you’. The confidence has to be shown. He is not scoring runs but he should be told that at No. 5, you are our batsman.’ not at 6. And that is what happened. No surprises that he got out for 0,” Gavaskar added.

Ajinkya Rahane has lost the knack of judging the length of the ball: Sanjay Manjrekar

On Day Four of the fourth Test match, the conditions looked ideal for batting. Rahane had survived a close LBW call but couldn’t capitalize a lot on that as he lost his wicket to Woakes soon. Rahane looked to flick the ball on the leg side but missed it and got hit on the pads. Manjrekar pointed that the batter is struggling to judge the length ball and that is possibly the issue with him.

“There is a problem there. Something that I have felt for a long time is that he has lost the knack of judging the length of the ball. Getting out twice almost in a few balls on a pitch that is good for batting, tells you a lot about his current state.”