'We were not up to the mark': Skipper Ajinkya Rahane

Ajinkya Rahane. Pic/Anurag Ahire

Mumbai skipper Ajinkya Rahane admitted that his defending champions failed to live up to their standard, resulting in a five-wicket loss to Jammu & Kashmir on Saturday.

"Firstly, let's give credit to Jammu and Kashmir. I thought they played this game really well. They bowled consistently in the right areas. They challenged our batting line-up in both innings, so credit to them.

‘They deserved to win'

"We were not up to the mark as a team, as a unit. They played really well, so they deserved to win," Rahane told reporters after J&K's win on Saturday. Rahane, who led Mumbai to their 42nd Ranji title last season, also admitted that the J&K team read the conditions better. "Frankly, we didn't expect the ball would seam that much. We thought it will be a good wicket to bat on and it will spin on Day Two, but obviously, they bowled really well," Rahane remarked.

"This season they've [J&K] been doing really well. We saw videos of their fast bowling unit."

When asked whether Mumbai's batting collapse in both innings is a concern, Rahane said: "As a team, I mean Rohit [Sharma], [Yashasvi] Jaiswal, they've been playing and are coming here after a long time - playing international cricket coming into domestic cricket. Other guys are playing white-ball cricket. If you see our Ranji Trophy set up, we had five changes. We played different teams in the first five-six games so it's tough to analyse in this one match. All the guys coming in for this game are quality players. "So, one bad game can happen and I'm not too worried. There are positives - Shardul's [Thakur] both innings, Mohit's [Avasthi] five-for. Tanush's [Kotian] batting again is a positive."

No excuses

Rahane reckoned playing red-ball cricket, white-ball cricket and again the red-ball format is a challenge, but it's a learning phase for players to progress further. "This is not an excuse, but I feel this is a learning experience for all of us as a team on how we can do better," he said.

Though after the sixth league game Mumbai are in third position with 22 points after Jammu & Kashmir and Baroda in Elite Group ‘A', Rahane is hopeful Mumbai will play the knockout games. "There's still one per cent chance for us to qualify [for the knockouts]. So you never know. Our main thing is to learn from this game," he added.