Former Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly says the omission of Ajinkya Rahane and Lokesh Rahul may have contributed to India's defeat to South Africa in 1st Test which was played at Cape Town.
The Indians who went to India with 9 consecutive Test series wins under their belt were defeated by 72 runs and the game was dominated by the South African fast bowlers.
Ganguly believes that Rahane’s past performances should have been considered by the team management before picking the side.
“The history of Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma in overseas conditions is not very good. Their record is basically chalk and cheese when it comes to overseas Tests. It is fine to go by current form, but they should not have overlooked the performances of KL Rahul and Ajinkya Rahane in overseas conditions in the past few years,” Ganguly said.
When it comes to overseas performance, Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan have both struggled to perform.
Dhawan has scored just one century outside the Indian subcontinent and his average is just 25.11 in the 15 Tests he has played outside India.
On the other hand, KL Rahul has scored 3 of his 4 centuries in overseas conditions while Ajinkya Rahane has been the standout performer with 6 hundreds and 9 fifties in away Tests.
However, Viray Kohli defended the inclusion of Sharma and Dhawan at the post-match media interaction.
“Well, we decided to go on current form. Rohit (Sharma) has scored runs in the last three Test matches that he has played, and he was batting well, even in the series against Sri Lanka,”.
