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| Indian Captain Ajinkya Rahane |
The men in blue begin their tour of Zimbabwe today with half the team traveling with less than 50 games under their belt.
Ajinkya Rahane helms the show leading a team of rookies, who have a point to prove. After its disastrous one day campaign in Bangladesh, the Indian Team will be tearing to go in Zimbabwe.
Dhoni, Kohli, Rohit and Raina et all have been rested with the Sri Lankan test series in view. Analyzing the one day series in Bangladesh, why did India actually fail to win the series? Was it because Bangladesh played better or India did not play to its potential !
A lot of talk about skipper Dhoni being in-effective did the rounds, but then do India have another option ? Kohli is not yet ready to be the Indian skipper and the general take is that Dhoni should have continued to captain India for at least one more year.
Getting back to the question of the failure in Bangladesh. There were certain erroneous decision made by the think-tank in team selection as well as the way the batsman players applied themselves. Dropping Rahane was a bad decision and at the same time lack of fresh hands and feet in the fast bowling department lead to our downfall.
So the question is was the one-off test and the short one-day series against Bangladesh required immediately after the IPL? Is the one-day International against Zimbabwe required ? Is Rahane not an integral part of the team leading to the Sri Lankan series ?
Rahane has been the most consistent batsman in test after Murli Vijay and Virat Kohli in the current Indian team. Vijay's selection in this make-shift team to Zimbabwe makes sense as he was not part of the Bangladesh one day series and a good stint in Zimbabwe can pave way for him to get back into the one-day team.
There are some bright players in the touring team to Zimbabwe such as Sandeep Sharma, Axar Patel and the old guard Harbhajan Singh.
In summary it will be an interesting fact to see how this rookie team will perform in Zimbabwe.
It will be interesting to see who will collect the stump for Mahi or will the Stumps be Intact (another lost series) !!
