The legendary cricketer Sunil Gavaskar slammed stand-in India captain Rishabh Pant for not drawing lessons from his previous mistakes as the southpaw continues to struggle with the willow.
Gavaskar referred to Pant's dismissal in fourth T20I against South Africa where the 24-year-old ended up throwing his wicket in the similar fashion as he flirted with the ball going outside off stump and holed out a catch to Pretorius off Keshav Maharaj's bowl.
The flamboyant wicketkeeper-batter has been dismissed similarly in the series before and was expected to learn something out of it. He is definitely struggling at the moment which reflects through his scores of 29, 5, 6 and 17 in his last four innings.
“He hasn't learned. He hasn't learned from his previous three dismissals,” Gavaskar said while commentating on Star Sports.
"They throw wide, and he keeps going for it. He can't throw enough muscle on that. He has got to stop looking to go aerial that far outside the off-stump. There is no way he's going to get enough on it. It has gone to short-third! They all plan it, South African bowlers and Temba Bavuma just bowl wide outside the off-stump and you will get him," he added.
Further, Gavaskar took aim at Pant by saying, "10 times, he has been dismissed wide outside off-stump (in T20s in 2022). Some of them would have been called wide if he hadn't made contact with it. Because he's so far away, he has to reach out for it. He will never get enough power on it. To keep getting out in the same series in the same manner, for a captain of the Indian team, that's not a good sign."
In the fourth T20I in Rajkot on Friday, India went on to clinch the issue by 82 runs riding on Dinesh Karthik's 55 off 27 and Avesh Khan's impressive 4/18. Batting first, Indian team lost three wickets in first seven overs and were in deep trouble. India needed someone to build a partnership and revive the team. Pant came in at no.4 and was expected to steady the boat alongside Hardik Pandya who came in at no.5. However, Pant only managed to score 17 runs off 23 balls.
Meanwhile, right after crushing the visitors Pant said that he needs to improve in certain areas as an individual.
"As an individual, I can look to improve in certain areas. Not too concerned though. Looking to take the positives and looking to improve. Let's see what happens in Bangalore. Looking forward to giving our 100 per cent," said Pant in the post-match presentation.
