Suddenly, I got dropped from ODIs: Rahane

Ajinkya Rahane has been going through a rough patch.

The 33 year old was removed as the vice-captain in the longest format in December after he scored only 479 runs in 13 Tests.

This year, Rahane played in two Tests against South Africa in January, scoring 68 runs with one half-century.

The right-handed batter believes that a lack of regular playing time has proved detrimental to his form of late.

'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,' Rahane said on Backstage with Boria.

The Ranji Trophy was last held in 2019/2020; the 2020/2021 edition was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the current season was further delayed due to a sudden surge in Omicron cases across the country.

The BCCI confirmed earlier this month that the domestic tournament will begin on February 17.

'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,' Rahane continued.

The batter said he had been performing well in both ODIs and Tests between 2014-2017, but 'hardly got game time' later.

'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.'