'Ajinkya Rahane is someone who is very consistent'

Rising Pune Supergiants, the new Indian Premier League franchise, have assembled a formidable squad for Season 9 of the cash-rich Twenty20 extravaganza. 

Apart from having Mahendra Singh Dhoni as captain, the other big players in the squad are Ravichandran Ashwin, Ajinkya Rahane, Australia captain Steven Smith, South Africa T20 skipper Faf du Plessis and England discard Kevin Pietersen. 

Among all of them the captain is pinning his hopes on Rahane. 

"He is someone who is very consistent," explained Dhoni, at the jersey launch of his new team in Delhi on Monday.

"He may not be part of the playing eleven regularly in the T20 Internationals but that is because your openers Rohit (Sharma) and Shikhar (Dhawan) are doing really well," he continued, adding, "But if you look at his performances in the IPL, Rahane is among top-two, top-three batsmen."

The former captain of Chennai Super Kings, which was banned for two years in the aftermath of the spot-fixing scandal of 2013, also expressed satisfaction about having Stephen Fleming, who coached CSK, with him at the Pune squad.

"Life becomes slightly easy with him around. We know each other for long time," asserted Dhoni, talking about having the former New Zealand captain's presence in the dressing room.

"He is a fantastic coach. His management skills are very good.

What I really like is that he is calm like me. It is good to have him and hopefully it will work for us."