Ranji Trophy match Ajinkya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara have played in a long time. Desperate to salvage their Test spot after a series of failures, both India’s veteran batsmen will be under scanner when — in a case of sheer coincidence — they go head-to-head when Mumbai take on defending champions Saurashtra in the what is pretty much a make-or-break Ranji Trophy Group D lung-opener for both the teams at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad from Thursday. The struggling duo, who once formed the bulwark of India’s Test batting, saw their fortunes dip further in South Africa. Both will count on their vast experience in first-class cricket to bail them out of this rut they currently find themselves in. Rahane has scored 11,796 runs in 164 games at an average of 46.44, while Pujara, with 16,757 runs in 223 matches at an average of 50.62, has been the scourge of bowlers at the domestic level. Having scored as many as 85 first-class hundreds between them, both will hope that this is the game that ends their run drought for good.