England vs India 2021: Ajinkya Rahane's Confidence Is Shot - Sunil Gavaskar

The legendary Indian batsman Sunil Gavaskar believes the demotion of Ajinkya Rahane worsened the situation and his confidence has reached rock-bottom as a result. Gavaskar also felt the shot-selection from Rahane in the third innings at The Oval was poor for a man out-of-form.

Rahane’s big slump in international cricket continues following a couple of miserable failures at The Oval. The pitch has no demons in it and barely has anything for the bowlers but the Indian vice-captain struggled to perform.

“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 was quoted as saying on The Sony Sports Network.

“The confidence has to be shown” – Sunil Gavaskar to Indian team management

Although Rahane has been fiercely backed by the team management and Virat Kohli in particular, the demotion of Rahane to No.6 doesn’t necessarily reflect that thought. Gavaskar opined that the lack of confidence shown in Rahane has deprived the 33-year-old of any self-belief he had.

“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,” Gavaskar added.

The out-of-sorts Rahane might be given one last chance to perform in the fifth Test between England and India in Manchester.

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