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Ajinkya Rahane, who maintained a gentle personality throughout his international career asked the Gautam Gambhir-led Indian team management to respect the senior cricketers to regain the glory days in Test cricket, only a few days after announcing his retirement from the India National Cricket Team.
While the Indian cricket team has gained notable success under the coaching of Gautam Gambhir across the white-ball formats, the team performed unexpectedly poorly in the longest format of the game. Rahane pointed out that the lack of senior cricketers in the side is possibly a reason behind the team's setbacks in Tests.
Multiple senior cricketers retired from the Indian cricket team in the recent past
Within a very short time span, established, experienced cricketers like Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Ravichandran Ashwin, Cheteshwar Pujara, and Rahane himself announced their retirements from the national team, which led the team into a sudden transition phase.
The retirements of Rohit, Virat, and Ashwin came all of a sudden, and Pujara and Rahane signed off as they remained sidelined for a long time. Transition is a part of cricket; every team goes through the phase. But how the phase comes and how the management deals with the situation matters the most.
Ajinkya Rahane believed that if the team showed trust in their experienced players instead of relying entirely on the less experienced candidates, the results could have been different.
After the 0-3 series defeat against New Zealand and a 0-2 defeat against South Africa on home soil, and losing the Border-Gavaskar series against Australia by 1-3 are the instances where Gambhir-led Team India was exposed in the Test format.
Ajinkya Rahane asks the Indian team management to keep at least 7-8 senior players in the Test team
Speaking on the ‘Stick to Cricket’ podcast, Ajinkya Rahane mentioned that for significant results in Tests, a team needs at least a combination of 7-8 experienced players with 2-3 young talents. For India, most of the talent are newcomers.
"Test cricket fans are actual cricket lovers. What we built apart from the last two years when new players came in Test cricket, I still feel Test cricket needs 7-8 senior players and 2-3 younger players. What we are seeing now is that all the players are actually new. There’s hardly any senior cricketer left. So, Test cricket needs that,” Ajinkya Rahane said.
"Keep and respect the senior players": Ajinkya Rahane slams Gautam Gambhir
He further added that it was painful for him to see the veterans choose to retire one after another, which became a serious issue for the Indian cricket team. The former cricketer asked the team management to keep the senior players with the team with proper respect.
“Frankly, yes I do (fear for Test cricket). Because the way it is going, we all want Test cricket to survive, to be there – India, England, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa. These 4-5 teams especially."
"Because what I have seen in the last 2-3 years, you need to keep and respect the senior players, especially because with the Indian team, all the senior players going out together at once, that’s been the issue.
