Amongst concerns of whether this will be the last we are seeing of the experienced du of Cheteshwar Puajara and Ajinkya Rahane in the Tests after the lean patch that they are going through, Team India‘s batting coach Vikram Rathour has backed the duo to play great knocks in near future.
"We want our top order to contribute, but the cricketers [Pujara and Rahane] you mentioned have played 80 and 90 Test matches so they have the experience," Rathour said in a press conference at the end of the fourth day’s play in Kanpur.
"To play that many games they must have done well for us. I understand both of them are going through a lean phase but they have played very very important knocks for us in the past, and we are pretty sure they will come back and play more important knocks for our team in the future as well,” added the batting coach.
Rahane, currently captaining the side and usually the vice-captain of the Indian Test unit has an average of 24.39 for his last 16 Tests while Pujara, who has been as solid as rick at number three has also found it hard to score continuously and averages only 28.61 in 23 Tests since the 2018-19 tour of Australia.
In this match, none of the players looked like making any headway and that has given air to rumours of either of them being dropped in the Mumbai Test. Shreyas Iyer, who is playing in place of Virat Kohli has performed exceedingly well scoring a century and half-century in his debut Test and hence him getting dropped would be the cruellest thing to happen.
"We will get to that point when we reach Mumbai. At this point, we are focused on this game. There is still a day to go, and a game to be won. So we are really focused on this game,” Rathour said when asked about whether Shreyas would be dropped to get Kohli in the squad or what the combination would be like
As far as the current match is concerned, the Indian team would be needing nine wickets on the last day to win the game while New Zealand would be looking to survive the day as getting 280 on the last day is almost impossible on the turning track.