India beat Australia 4-1 to win the series at Nagpur. Team India is on a high after winning three series after the ICC Champions Trophy. India won in West Indies, then Sri Lanka and now Australia. Three big teams hauled in the last three months. Ajinkya Rahane, who was pitted in to replace Shikhar Dhawan, performed splendidly well. Ajinkya bagged the Man of the Series award in the West Indies series. Ajinkya has been in ominous form and to drop him takes some guts. The BCCI announced the T20I team that will lock horns with Australia, the team has axed Ajinkya Rahane which happens to be a big surprise. But that did not upset the gentleman-like Rahane.
“Yes, so much cricket we play, the team management, selectors take a decision and we respect it. Speaking about competition, it is necessary and it helps you to give your best performance. Whoever gets a chance does well for the team. I have always enjoyed the competition (among players),” Rahane told reporters here.
“Yes, I am happy. The responsibility and the opportunity I was given, the way I was supposed to bat, I did. Definitely, I am happy with the form I have carried from the West Indies tour, I have made four consecutive fifties,” he explained.
“I could have converted the fifties into hundreds. It was in my mind to contribute, I shared three 100-run stands with Rohit (Sharma) and our aim was to give a good start to the team,” he added.
“It is a proud moment for all of us. Our aim is 2019 World Cup and we are going in that direction. For that we have to play series by series and match by match, the aim of this team is to win every match and series, and we always try to improve, he added.
“All have performed. In the middle-order Manish Pandey and Kedar Jadhav, whenever they got the opportunity, they have performed. Rohit and Virat (Kohli) have always performed well. Kuldeep (Yadav) and (Yuzvendra) Chahal got a chance and they did well. Our bench strength is good,” he further added.
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“The fact that all of us get a chance and perform is a good sign. If you have to win the 2019 World Cup, then you have to test your bench strength,” Rahane, who cleaned a street near the Mumbai Cricket Associations Bandra Kurla Complex centre today as part of the cleanliness campaign to mark the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, he concluded.
