Kohli and Rahane stack up with the best in the world: Kumar Sangakkara

Among the 13 Indian players who played the first two Test matches only skipper Virat Kohli managed to even score a half century. He scored 200 runs combined in both the innings in the Edgbaston Test and the team still fell 31 runs short of the target. It was a collective batting failure in Lord’s and Ajinkya Rahane who had scored a hundred at the venue last time couldn’t make a difference. Former Sri Lankan captain Kumar Sangakkara thinks they shouldn’t be looking at the stats.

Kohli has a career Test average of 53.64 and has drastically improved his poor England record. He had 134 runs in 10 innings having failed miserably in 2014. Rahane on the other hand, has an ordinary average at home at 37 whereas his numbers outside Asia before this tour was 52.65.

Sangakkara said they are both outstanding batsmen and he counts them among the best in the world. The former cricketer with 12400 Test runs wants them to just focus on the job in hand at the moment and not think of what has already happened.

Kohli and Rahane among the best

“Kohli and Rahane’s averages away from are outstanding, and stack up with the best in the world. I’m surprised Rahane is averaging only 37 at home, as he is a far better player than that. But, for these Indian batsmen on tour it’s about blocking out all of these stats and concentrating on the job in hand,” Sangakkara said while talking on Sky Sports.

He also expressed that the batsmen shouldn’t be worried about something like technique which is well beyond their control instead the objective should be to adjust and make it work. “Don’t worry about technique, worry about what you can control and adjust to,” he added.

Score close to 300

Joe Root once again won the toss and asked the Indian team to bat first. Sanga said they have to put up runs on board and a first innings score of around 300 is what they need. “Go out there and score runs, they need to get up to a total of close to 300,” the Sri Lankan stated while commentating during the 3rd Test.

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