NEW DELHI: A few days back, after their umpteenth failure, Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane were trending on social media with the hashtag being ‘PuRane’ (Old).
Now, social media is a platform for outrage almost 24×7 and it is very easy to call the latest trend as the “proverbial outside noise”, which the Indian cricket team management does not like taking note of.
But after five failures in six completed knocks in South Africa, the two veterans surely seem to have played their last Test for India for some time.
It will be a travesty if two among the trio of Hanuma Vihari, Shreyas Iyer and Shubman Gill (recovering from a shin injury) don’t make it to the playing eleven in the two-Test series against Sri Lanka in February-March.
Rahane’s tally stands at 136 at an average of 22.66 and Pujara is even worse with only 124 at 20.66. In all likelihood, the statistics will be the final nail in the coffin when Chetan Sharma and his colleagues pick the squad for the next Test series in India.
More than anyone else, the duo knows that time indeed has run out for them. Never ever has the Indian cricket establishment given such a long rope to two individuals like the one being given to Rahane and Pujara.
In the last two years, they have failed consistently and found success not even sporadically whereas it should have been the other way round.
It seemed that team management as well as selectors were bent on giving them every chance to succeed. And they have been blowing those away.
Perhaps now stake-holders would think that it’s time Vihari and Iyer get half of those chances to fail. One can vouch they wouldn’t do much worse than what Rahane and Pujara have done.
So what is the problem with Pujara and Rahane? It’s a two-fold issue of technical issues which have also been compounded by mental cobwebs.
The most abused word in Indian cricket is ‘process’ and perhaps the favourite of most cricketers when questions that are difficult to address are thrown at them.
“I trust my process,” is a catch-phrase that one hears often in Indian cricket.
But in the case of Rahane and Pujara, it can be said that the process has clearly not worked for a while now.
Perhaps it’s only fair to give them a break and look at other options which will benefit Indian cricket.
Both of them have been getting out in the same fashion match after match but there seems to be no corrective measures taken and at times it seems they have no clarity as to how they want to play — fearless cricket or defensive.
In case of Pujara, whose range of strokes is very limited, bowlers have worked him out providing him with very little room to play the square cut and over time, he has now missed out on half volleys which used to be duly patted back to the fielders at cover or mid-off.
—PTI

Press Trust of India