Happy with my form: Rahane

Rahane so far has hit just one fifty (60 off 48 balls) in the ongoing IPL and that too came in the lung opener against Sunrisers Hyderabad on April 5. Thereafter, Rahane’s bat went silent but the right-hander said he is satisfied with his personal form. 

“I am happy the way I am batting at the moment. It is important to spend time in the middle. Right now the way I am middling and timing the ball, I am really happy. As long as we are winning matches I am happy because that is important,” Rahane said at the post-match press conferenceon Monday night. 

“Switching from Test to T20 format is about mental adjustment and I did that completely well,” he said. Rising Pune Supergiant last night halted Mumbai Indians’ winning streak by clinching a three-run win in a thriller of a contest at the Wankhede stadium here. 

Mumbai needed 17 runs in the last over for a win but Rising Pune Supergiant leftarm pacer Jaydev Unadkat did enough to clinch the encounter in his side’s favour. 

Asked about the rationale behind the final over given to Unadkat over Shardul Thakur, Rahane said, “After the 19th over, when (Steve) Smith, I and Mahi bhai (Mahendra Singh Dhoni) were discussing who should bowl between Shardul and Jaydev (Unadkat), we picked up Jaydev. Shardul has good pace and we didn’t want to give batsman the pace in the last over. 

“Jaydev’s pace is comparatively lesser than Shardul and his slower ball is effective. The wicket was also a little slow and Rohit (Sharma) was a set batsman, so our point was not to give them pace. “One side of the ground is small and one or two shots in the last over (could have made the difference). That was the planning in the last over. The final over also witnessed a heated conversation between Mumbai Indians skipper Rohit Sharma and on-field umpire S Ravi. Having seen Rohit shuffle across the stumps, Unadkat pushed the third delivery of the over wide and Rohit, realising that the ball was veering away from the guideline for wide deliveries, left it alone. 

But umpire Ravi didn’t call it a wide that infuriated Rohit and he started arguing with Ravi forcing the the square-leg umpire A Nand Kishore to intervene. Asked about the issue, Rahane said, “That was a right call by the umpire. As a batsman when you move and if the bowler bowls outside that area goes to the bowler. Rohit’s behaviour at that point was natural. Somewhere as a captain, as a player you feel when the match is so close. I don’t think there was any fault in Rohit’s behaviour.”