India’s Test specialist Ajinkya Rahane has kept the safety of his family as a priority with the 13th season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) moved to the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The Indian government recently gave the green signal to the tournament being shifted to UAE amidst COVID-19 pandemic in the country. The cash-rich league is scheduled to kick off from September 19.
Rahane suggested that he’d be okay if BCCI does not allow family members to travel along with Indian cricketers, even if he’d dearly want his close-ones to be around.
“As an individual, you take Covid-19 situation aside, you would want your family to travel with you, but because of this situation, safety is important, the safety of your wife, family and daughter, obviously the safety of your teammates is really important. Right now, I feel first health and then cricket is really important. We had a good 4-5 months with our family (during the lockdown),” Rahane told India Today.
“As I said, safety of our family, safety of our players and safety of each and every individual is important. The decision is completely up to the franchises and the BCCI. There is still corona around, you got to think about each and every individual, think about your family especially about my wife and daughter. Safety is really important,” he added.
The 32-year-old shifted his base from Rajasthan Royals (RR) to Delhi Capitals (DC) in last year’s IPL auction. Rahane will join fellow Test specialists Ishant Sharma, Hanuma Vihari and Ravichandran Ashwin at the Delhi camp.
“I am really excited to play for Delhi Capitals. I took my time and I thought it’s an opportunity for me to learn something new. To take my game forward, to take my T20 game forward,” the Mumbai batsman said.
In conclusion, India’s number five in Tests rued the absence of Sourav Ganguly in the DC unit.
“Obviously, Dada (Sourav Ganguly, who worked as the team’s mentor in IPL 2019) is not there, that time my focus was if I could play under Dada and Ricky Ponting I could learn many things. As a cricketer, that’s what you want,” Rahane concluded.
