'I was dropped for no reason': Ajinkya Rahane opens up on 'unfair treatment' that triggered his slump

Ajinkya Rahane hasn't been in the best of form of late. His sub-par performances in the longest format of the game saw him being replaced as vice-captain in red-ball cricket. Besides, several experts have called for him to be dropped from the side as well.

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The Mumbai batter last scored a Test hundred in 2020, against Australia. He has only managed to score 479 runs in 13 Tests. As a matter of fact, he was mediocre during the recently concluded three-match Test series against South Africa as well.

The 33-year-old scored just 136 runs in six innings at an average of 22.67. Thus, the right-handed batter recently went on to draw light on his current form. He cited the lack of regular playing time as a reason for his poor form in the recent past.

"Sometimes, the reality is, when you play only one format and especially in the last 2-3 years where there is no Ranji cricket and no other domestic games, I think that needs to be taken into account because you can't score runs sitting at home. No matter how much you practice or have net sessions, the confidence will not be gained with that. Confidence comes with game time and scoring runs in matches," said Ajinkya Rahane on Backstage with Boria.

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He then spoke about how he was playing both, ODIs and Tests, from 2014-to 2017 but was suddenly dropped from the team without any reason. He said since he only plays Test cricket, he hardly gets any game time going into a Test series. "Before that, I was playing ODI cricket continuously for Team India and I was doing really well. Suddenly, I got dropped, I don't want to go into that, I don't want to go into my past, but the reality is I was playing well in 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017. ODI and Test cricket both were going really well. After that I hardly got game time, there was a huge gap between Test matches," he added.