Home
Former chairman of selection committee and Indian cricketer Krishnamachari Srikkanth aired his opinion on the 25-year-old wicketkeeper-batter saying that Pant is “messing up” chances given his repetitive underwhelming performances that are making everyone question his inclusion in the team. The veteran Indian cricketer stressed the need for Pant to reinvent his batting and regain form in the run-up to the ODI World Cup in India next year. He also said that he was disappointed in the young wicketkeeper for not making his chances count.
“Maybe you can give him (Pant) a break and tell him ‘just wait a bit, come and play in India’, they haven’t handled him well. Are you going to wait for a couple of matches before giving him a break or remove him after one or two games?” Srikkanth said on his YouTube channel Cheeky Cheeka.
“Yes, Rishabh Pant is not utilising the chances he’s getting. I am very disappointed – ennada Pant-u (what is this Pant)?” he added.
“You are messing up these chances. If you smash into such matches, it’ll be good right? The World Cup is coming up. Already a lot of people are saying that Pant isn’t scoring so it’ll add fuel to the fire,” Srikkanth said.
“He’s going to put pressure on himself. He needs to reinvent himself. He has to do something right – stand and play for a while and then go for it… He’s throwing his wicket away all the time.” India will take on New Zealand in the third and final ODI on Wednesday in Christchurch.
Pant was widely heralded as a safe pair of hands as MS Dhoni was inching towards retirement from all forms of cricket. Pant was seen as the explosive wicketkeeper-batter that India did not have to look too far to find, however, since his heroics at the IPL and U-19 Cricket, Rishabh Pant has failed to live up to his billing in limited-overs cricket.
The southpaw has made a good fist of his Test career while making a bad account in ODI cricket where he was highly anticipated to be dangerous. The Indian think tank has repeatedly shown faith in Pant while Pant has time and again failed to deliver the goods. This becomes evident when in the first ODI of India vs New Zealand, Pant lost his wicket cheaply for 15 runs and had earlier managed to score only 17 runs in the T20I against New Zealand.
The string of low scores for Pant now has a long history when we learn in the shortest format he last scored a fifty long since February against the West Indies and while crossing the 30-run mark only twice in the 21 innings that he has played in 2022.
