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Former India cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar lavished praise on Rishabh Pant following in twin centuries in the first Test match of the Tendulkar-Anderson Trophy taking place at the Yorkshire Cricket Ground in Leeds, England. He compared the 27-year-old wicketkeeper batter with the legendary batters like Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Sunil Gavaskar and Dilip Vengsarkar.
Manjrekar believes that Pant can surpass former skipper Rahul Dravid in scoring the most centuries for India on English soil. The left-handed wicketkeeper batter has already broken a plethora of records in with his century in Day 4 of the second innings of the first Test against England at Headingley.
Speaking on 'Match Centre Live' following the conclusion of Day 4 of the first Test of India's tour of England, JioHotstar expert Sanjay Manjrekar lauded Rishabh Pant on his historic batting feats as a wicketkeeper.
"When you look at all of Rishabh Pant's achievements, the first instinct is to think of him purely as a batter -- and understandably so. When you're talking about batting exploits in England, scoring twin hundreds, the names he's being compared with are legends like Dilip Vengsarkar, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, and Sunil Gavaskar. But here's the remarkable part -- he's also a wicketkeeper. That's what makes it almost unbelievable," Manjrekar said at the end of play on Day 4.
"I know someone like Kumar Sangakkara had a phenomenal batting record, but he wasn't quite the keeper that Rishabh Pant is. Pant is India's first and last choice as a wicketkeeper in this Test side -- and that says a lot," he added
Manjrekar also said that there are four Tests still remaining in the ongoing Tendulkar-Anderson Trophy and there are chances that Pant can surpass Dravid (6) in scoring the most tons for the national team in England
"If you look at the numbers -- most hundreds by Indians in Tests in England -- Rahul Dravid leads with six. And suddenly, you have Pant's name in that same elite bracket. There's a nice little twist -- there are two Rahul's in this story. You've got KL Rahul, and you've got Rishabh Pant. Who knows, by the time this series is done, Pant could match or even surpass Rahul Dravid. There are still four Tests to go in this series -- that's potentially eight innings for Pant. He's already started in near-perfect fashion," the former player concluded.
Pant's knock concluded with nine sixes, the joint-most by a batter in a Test in England, equaling the efforts of Andrew Flintoff (vs Aus, Edgbaston, 2005) and captain Ben Stokes (vs Aus, Lord's, 2023).
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