PTI
Kanpur, Sept 19: Batsman Ajinkya Rahane is expecting the Kanpur wicket to assist the Indian spinners and said here Monday that the team’s performance in the first Test will set the tone for a long home season, comprising 13 five-day games.
“It is exciting times for us with the 13 Tests scheduled at home. The West Indies tour went well for us. Some players also featured in the Duleep Trophy before the New Zealand series. We feel we are in pretty good space at the moment,” Rahane said ahead of India’s first match of the three-Test series against New Zealand, beginning here Friday.
“It will be important to play it match by match, series by series. We know our conditions here. Having said that, it is important that we respect the opponents in all the 13 Tests we play at home,” he added.
After New Zealand, the Indians will host England, Australia and Bangladesh.
The pitch has been the talking point again before the start of a home series with the Green Park pitch expected to be a turner. However, Rahane insisted that the players are only focused on doing well, irrespective of the pitch and other conditions.
“The weather is not in our control but we have generally seen slow and low wickets here (Kanpur). Anyway as a team we don’t focus on the pitch, we are determined on putting up a good performance,” asserted the Mumbai batsman.
“Hopefully the wicket will turn. We all know in India that wickets are helpful for the spinners. That is our plus point here and it is important to play to our strengths. As of now however, we are not sure how the wicket will behave,” added Rahane.
Rahane also said that it would be wrong to judge the Kiwi bowling attack on the basis of their performances against Mumbai in the warm-up game.
