Former India cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar lavished praise on wicketkeeper batter Rishabh Pant after he smashed a century in the ongoing first Test match against Bangladesh at MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai. This was Pant's first international ton since his comeback in cricket after recovering from a near-fatal accident he met in December 2022 while driving back home.
With his ton against Bangladesh, Pant has equaled the record for former India captain MS Dhoni who has six centuries in the longest format of the game. Dhoni took 90 matches to reach this milestone. On the other hand, Pant just took 34 Test matches to reach this milestone. Additionally, he has had several innings where he fell just short, getting out in the 90s more than half a dozen times. Manjrekar reckoned that Pant deserves applause for his shot-making, his defensive technique should not go unnoticed.
"It's a misleading package we see with Rishabh Pant. Underneath that, you will see as many dot balls in his innings at Shubman Gill's so he is willing to also play the defensive game that we have seen many times in the past,” Manjrekar told ESPNcricinfo.
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“He has got a pretty good defensive technique, bit like Dhoni, whose defensive technique was quite good. People talk about the leadership and the big-hitting power that Dhoni had, but his defensive technique was pretty good, and the same with Rishabh Pant as well," Manjrekar said.
Pant made a valuable partnership of 167 runs with young batter Shubman Gill (Gill 119 not out and Pant 109) which helped India to take a lead of 514 runs before Rohit Sharma declared the innings. Earlier in the first innings, Gill got departed on a duck and Pant got out after scoring 39 runs but Ravichandran Ashwin's stand with Ravindra Jadeja helped India to post 376 runs.
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