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India's stand-in skipper for the T20I series against South Africa, Rishabh Pant, faced a lot of flak after poor returns with the bat as many fans of the game questioned his place in the team. However, the young wicketkeeper-batter has the support of India head coach Rahul Dravid, who made a big statement on Pant's chances in the upcoming T20 World Cup squad.
Dravid reiterated on Sunday that Pant is a 'big' and 'integral' part of India's plan in the build-up to the T20 World Cup in Australia. "Personally, he would have liked to score a few more runs but it is not concerning him. Certainly, he is a very big part of our plans going ahead in the next few months," Dravid said during the post-match press conference.
The former India captain also admitted that he will not judge Pant based on one series and highlighted the importance of a player of Pant's calibre in the middle-order. "I just don't want to be critical. In the middle overs, you need people to play slightly attacking brands of cricket, to take the game on a little more. Sometimes it's very hard to judge it based on two or three games," the head coach said.
While citing his support for Pant, Dravid brought to notice Pant's strike rate of 158 plus during the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 season, where he scored 340 runs for Delhi Capitals (DC).
"I think he had a pretty good IPL in terms of strike rate even though it might not have looked good on averages. In IPL, he looked to move up a little bit (in terms of averages) and probably three years ago he was on those numbers. We are hoping that we can get those numbers from him at the international level.
"In the process (of playing an attacking game), he might go wrong in a few games but he remains an integral part of our batting line-up with the power he has and the fact that he is a left-hander is important to us in the middle overs, he played some good knocks," said Dravid.
