Skipper Rahane 'thrilled' to have Shreyas Iyer for semis

Mumbai captain Ajinkya Rahane on Friday backed Shreyas Iyer to put the contractual turmoil behind him and deliver a punchy performance for the team in the Ranji Trophy 202324 semifinal against Tamil Nadu beginning on SaturdayShreyas along with Jharkhands Ishan Kishan were not considered for the annual central contracts after both the players skipped the Ranji matches of their respective teams in violation of BCCIs diktatShreyas sat out of Mumbais quarterfinal against Baroda here while complaining of back painHes an experienced player His contribution has been amazing whenever he turned up for Mumbai We are thrilled to have him in our team for the semifinal Rahane told the media here at the BKC GroundRahane said Shreyas would not require any extra motivation to do well for Mumbai against TNI dont think he needs any encouragement or advice He has always contributed with the bat for Mumbai and him being around other players in the dressing room will also help the teams cause said Rahane However Rahane himself is waging a personal battle after scoring just 115 runs from six matches at an average of 1277 with a lone fiftyAlso Read Dashing Dube has skipper Ajinkya Rahanersquos backingBut the 35yearold did not read much into those anaemic numbersIts just a phase and you have to respect it not scoring runs When youre batting well and scoring runs it happens consistently Theres nothing wrong with my batting I just have to remain positive and back my game and instinct he saidRahane said he needed to bat freely to get back into his runscoring waysI just have to go out there and play freely I feel as a player you have to be confident and respect a phase move forward and learn whatever you can You dont want to go too far ahead he addedRahane confirmed that opener Prithvi Shaw has recovered from a finger injury which had forced him to bat in the middleorder during the quarterfinalHis finger was hurt thats why he came down the order We wanted him to go before Musheer Khan But obviously because of the injections effect he had to go after him Rahane saidRahane hoped that Shaw who has made 389 runs from four matches at an average of 6483 would find his A game in the Ranji Trophy 202324 semifinalPrithvi is really aggressive and he gets those runs very quickly As a batsman I dont think he has changed much Hes hungry to score runs Thats what we want from Prithvi We dont want him to change his game Rahane saidHe said Mumbai will adopt a pressurefree approach in this gameWe are playing really well We dont want to think about the quarterfinal semifinal or final It is just another game for us If we can do that and be in the moment as a team and individuals it will help us Rahane notedRahane was obviously pleased with the hundreds Tanush Kotian and Tushar Deshpande the No 10 and 11 made in the last outing and said such efforts will add a lot of meat to the whole batting unitEveryone is working really hard especially the bowlers with their batting I think when No 8 9 10 11 contribute with the bat it becomes really crucial for the team Those guys have worked really hard throughout the season on their batting you know those extra 1520 minutes after they bowl at nets Its paying offWith agency inputs