India vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane’s confidence may have taken a further hit when he was demoted to No.6 during the Oval Test, according to former captain and batting great Sunil Gavaskar. Rahane was demoted with Ravindra Jadeja taking his place at No.5 in both innings of the fourth Test and he was dismissed ojn 14 and a duck.
Gavaskar said that the shot Rahane was trying when he was dismissed for LBW against Chris Woakes was not a great one for an out of form batsman. “That was a bad shot for a man out of form to be playing across the line towards square leg. There is no way the ball was going to meet the ball. His confidence is shot. He was not confident before because he hadn’t scored runs apart from that 60 at Lord’s. At Leeds, he hadn’t got runs,” Gavaskar said on The Sony Sports Network.
Gavaskar said that the team seems to be telling Rahane that their confidence in him is now wearing thin.
“In the first innings, I had generally thought that Ravindra Jadeja was promoted over him because perhaps Rahane was on a toilet break. But now in the second innings as well, when Jadeja went ahead of him and it hasn’t worked – what it’s done to the psychology of a player is that it says ‘look, we are not showing any confidence in you’. The confidence has to be shown. He is not scoring runs but he should be told that at No. 5, you are our batsman’ not at 6. And that is what happened. No surprises, that he got out for 0,” said Gavaskar.
