'Pant doing a thankless job': Sunil Gavaskar backs Indian youngster

Nagpur: Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar on Sunday empathised with the struggling Rishabh Pant, saying the wicketkeeper-batsman has a thankless job to do and needs to be given enough chances to prove himself. After botching up a stumping in the second Twenty20 in Rajkot, Pant perished while attempting a slog in the series-decider here on Sunday.

“There are two-three thankless jobs in this game. One is the umpires’ job. If he gets nine decisions right but one decision wrong, the wrong one gets talked about. The same thing with the wicket-keepers, they can do 95 per cent of the things right but the one miss is talked about,” Gavaskar told PTI.

“The same thing is happening at the moment with Rishabh. His lapses are talked about more when otherwise he is keeping well.”

Gavaskar’s comments came a day after Rohit Sharma asked Pant’s critics to leave him alone for a while and let him play with freedom. Pant is feeling the pressure and so is opener Shikhar Dhawan who has failed to score at a high strike rate in this series. In the environment of intense competition, pressure is bound to be there, said Gavaskar.

“There is pressure on everybody. Everybody needs to be given enough chances. That is for the selectors to decide, the adequate number of chances. There will be opportunities to try out players in the West Indies series (next month). “There are enough opportunities for selectors to mix it up and see (what is working),” said Gavaskar when asked if Pant and Dhawan need to be persisted with.