Suresh Raina Takes A Dig At Virat Kohli For Lack Of Chances During His Captaincy

Suresh Raina’s international career is pretty much off the track now. In the last few three years, the southpaw has got just a handful of chances. He last played for India during the tour of England. Suresh Raina was making a comeback to international cricket through that tour only but was dropped straightaway after India returned from England.

Since then, he has not been tried even once although India were desperately waiting for a reliable batsmen in the middle-order for last year’s World Cup. It won’t be very surprising if Suresh Raina does not earn another recall anytime soon. He is well out of the picture now as the likes of Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey, Rishabh Pant, Kedar Jadhav form India’s middle-order now.

And as chances have come very rarely in the last couple of years for him, Suresh Raina has seemingly taken a dig at current India captain Virat Kohli. Raina, who was an integral part of India’s ODI and T20I team not very long ago, recalled how Rahul Dravid and MS Dhoni backed him as he said that the skipper plays an important role in building a player’s confidence.

“For any newcomer, it is important to get a lot of opportunities. I was lucky to play under Rahul Dravid when I came in. He gave me a lot of opportunities. Then I played under MS Dhoni, who understood my game. When Rohit (Sharma) and Virat (Kohli) get out, there is so much pressure on the middle-order. You face different situations all the time when you are playing in those slots. I used to believe in myself. The skipper too has an important role to play,” Suresh Raina told The Times of India.

Raina has received very few chances since Virat Kohli took over as the ODI and T20I captain in 2017. Since then, Raina has played only three ODIs. In those three games, he did not get to bat in one match before scoring 46 and 1 in the next two. No surprises then that he is feeling hard done by with the way he has been treated.

He further took another dig at the team-management for not giving enough time to newcomers in the middle-order.

“The support of the captain and team management will definitely solve this middle-order drama. You can’t expect (Shreyas) Iyer and (Rishabh) Pant to score big runs in every game. You have to give them the assurance that they will not be dropped,” said Suresh Raina.

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