Ever since Ajinkya Rahane led team India to a series win as a skipper in Australia in the absence of Virat Kohli, questions have been raised on the captaincy of Virat. Virat took over the captaincy in the first Test match against England, which India lost by a whopping 277 runs, due to the change in captaincy. However, after India lost the first test match, Virat found himself at the receiving end of criticism and trolling.
During the pre-match press conference, India’s vice-captain was asked if he believes that the body language of the team went down in the first Test match. Responding to the question, Rahane made a big comment about his relationship with the Indian skipper. He said:
“There are moments when you don’t have that energy but that doesn’t mean that it has happened because of a change in captaincy. As I have said earlier, Virat is our captain and will remain our captain.”
“If you are trying to dig in and find some ‘masala’ (controversy), unfortunately, you will not get it. Look, body language can be a bit down at times and the wicket was such in the first 2 days, it could be because of that. There could be many reasons,”
Rahane also gave it back to the critics for leveling at Cheteshwar Pujara for his slow batting. He revealed that no one in the team questioned the performance of Cheteshwar Pujara. He said:
“See no one questioned his batting approach in the team and that’s what matters. What people talk outside doesn’t matter to us,” Rahane said.
“We know Pujara’s role in the team. The way he played in Australia and the way he played now, it’s really important for us. We back him completely. He has played 80 odd Test matches and knows his game really well, no one questioned his ability or how he batted in Australia,”
Furthermore, Rahane said that team India needs to accept the mistakes that were made in the first Test match and make a strong comeback in the second Test match. He said:
“At times when you lose, you tend to delve deep into the reasons and that brings in negativity and it’s not your fault but you still start blaming yourself.
“What happened in the last Test, we need to accept…We need to move on and the endeavour should be on how to do well in all departments of the game,”
