Ranji Trophy 2024: Ajinkya Rahane remains unimpressive with consecutive golden ducks

India's ace batter Ajinkya Rahane has been out of the international arena for quite some time now. After his surprising comeback in the team for the World Test Championship final followed by a two-match series against the West Indies, Rahane failed to mark a lasting impression in the eyes of the selectors, which led to his ouster for the recently concluded series against South Africa. The Ashwi-KD-born batter has also not been announced for the first two Tests against England beginning towards the fag end of January.

In a hope to pick a place for himself back into the national team's dressing room, the star batter is currently playing first-class cricket during the ongoing Ranji Trophy 2024. The Mumbai skipper, who missed the first match against Bihar in Patna, came back to lead the 41-time champion side for the game against Andhra at his home ground in BKC. He, however, failed to open his account, getting out for a duck off Nitish Kumar Reddy in the only innings that he played, while the hosts grabbed their second consecutive bonus, thereby winning convincingly.

After a flop showing, a lot of eyes were on the veteran India batter, expecting him to go big in the ongoing game against Kerala. The odds, however, went against Rahane as he once again was dismissed for a golden duck, getting caught by keeper-batter Sanju Samson on just the second ball of the innings, as Mumbai saw early trouble on Day One, losing two of their wickets in as many balls bowled by Basil Thampi in the first over itself.

Cheteshwar Pujara runs his merry way to score at will

Notably, after two consecutive golden ducks, it is important for the red-ball specialist Rahane to come back harder on the upcoming occasions in order to send a strong statement to selectors, just like Cheteshwar Pujara, who is currently the second-leading run scorer in 2024 edition thus far, including a solid 243* in the first game at Rajkot, which helped Saurashtra in securing a draw against Jharkhand.

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