Ajinkya Rahane's finger injury may force him to miss limited overs series too

Ajinkya Rahane’s injury seems to be much worse than it was thought as his broken finger now puts him in serious doubt for the ODI and T20 series against the same opponents. Rahane picked up the injury before the fourth Test at Wankhede and eventually was ruled out of the last two Tests against England.

The limited overs’ leg of England’s tour of India will commence after the Christmas break on January 15 next year in Pune with the first of the three ODIs between the teams, who will later play three Twenty20 Internationals too.

The BCCI on Wednesday had said that Rahane had suffered “an avulsion fracture on his right index finger” after getting hit by a ball during a practice session on the eve of the Mumbai Test. The selectors have opted for Karnataka batsman Manish Pandey as a replacement for Rahane. But, the selectors eventually went ahead with Karun Nair who was already in the squad.

According to sources, the batsman was told that his finger would take at least a month to heal completely. The injury had dismissed Rahane’s chance to play his first Test in front of his home crowd. Rahane is the second India player, after all-rounder Hardik Pandya to be in doubt for the limited-overs leg of the England series

India’s injury list is getting bigger and bigger after each passing test match. Most recently, fast bowler Mohammad Shami also joined the list of the injury prone players along with Rahane. The fast bowler, easily the lead bowler in the team, is struggling with a sore knee. The trouble began to occur after the Mohali Test which India won comprehensively to take a 2-0 lead in the series.

The fourth Test is currently ongoing at the Wankhede Stadium with England looking strong batting first.