Suresh Raina credits Virat Kohli and Ravi Shastri for supporting him in bad times

Though India’s uber-aggressive approach, which took the game out of South Africa’s reach in the first six overs itself, hardly gave any chance to Raina for proving a statement with his bat at Wanderers, the former crowd favourite pulled off some brilliant catches on the field to announce his return to national colours after a year.

Raina could survive only seven balls coming amidst an onslaught by India, but he hit two boundaries and a six to prove that he hasn’t lost his touch despite being out of international cricket for long. If that was not enough, the CSK hero provided the icing on the cake by taking catches of JP Duminy, Heinrich Klaasen and Chris Morris. 

However, the man in the spotlight since yesterday had to spend months in exile where he had to play domestic cricket and continuously prove himself despite his past heroics. Crossing the new bar set by the Yo-Yo test was another big hurdle for him and he had to work doubly hard alongside compatriot Yuvraj Singh to overcome it. And the southpaw has revealed in all these tough time Shastri and Kohli always supported him apart from his family.

“When I didn’t get a chance, I was very strong mentally and got a lot of support from my family. I got a lot of support from our Head Coach Ravi Shastri alongside with captain Virat Kohli. When someone is down, but you have people like them supporting you, it feels great. I wanted to get back to winning ways and this T20I series might well be the beginning," Raina told BCCI.tv.

Raina’s return has thrown open the race for the No. 4 place in the Indian line-up all over again ahead of the 2019 World Cup, as he joins the likes of Manish Pandey, Ajinkya Rahane and Dinesh Karthik. Raina revealed that he always knew he would make a timely comeback in the national colours.

“I have worked really hard for the last two years and coming to back to the Indian team, it feels like I am playing for the first time in the Indian jersey. I am a very positive person. The wait to get back into the team made me tougher and hungrier. Each and every lap I ran during training, I was only thinking about the day I will come back and represent my country,” he added.