Gambhir gives damning verdict on Rahane; 'He's in the team only because he's captain'

As India vs New Zealand T20 series is done and dusted, the focus now shifts to the longest format of the game. India will take on  New Zealand in a two-match Test series with the first one starting from Thursday. Ajinkya Rahane will be the stand-in captain for the Team India vs New Zealand in the first Test in Kanpur in Virat Kohli's absence.

Now, former Indian cricketer Gautam Gambhir has reckoned that stand-in captain Ajinkya Rahane is 'pretty fortunate' to be in the squad for the first Test against New Zealand. Gambhir said that Rahane is in the team only because he is leading the side.

Speaking to the Star Sports show 'Game Plan', Gautam Gambhir said, "I am going to open with Mayank Agarwal and KL Rahul because he opened in England and then probably Shubman Gill will bat at No. 4."That's what I would want to see and plus Rahane is pretty fortunate that he's still part of this side because he's leading... But again he's got another opportunity now, hopefully, he can make that count."

Ajinkya Rahane is going through a lean patch. In the last 15 Tests, Rahane has amassed just 644 runs at an average of 24.76. While the tally does include that magnificent match-winning hundred in Melbourne last December, he has been struggling to live up to the expectations since then. 

In the Test series in England, the right-handed batter didn’t find things easy as he managed to score just 109 runs at an average of 15.57. Barring the 61 he scored in the second innings of the Lord’s Test, Rahane looked out of sorts throughout the series.

It is pertinent to mention here that various cricket experts had suggested Rahane to go back and play domestic cricket after his continuous failures with the bat. In fact, former Indian wicket-keeper batter Parthiv Patel stated that Rahane might not play for India again after the India vs England Test series. 

"I feel it might have been Ajinkya Rahane's last innings. Rahane's peak batting average of 51.4 in 2016 and from there he has come to 39. The form has gone down considerably, which means the consistency is not there, there is no doubt about that. There is definitely a pattern for Ajinkya Rahane. There will definitely be questions asked about players who are not consistent," Parthiv Patel had said speaking on Aakash Chopra's Youtube channel. 

(Image: AP/PTI)