Mumbai: Rishabh Pant has come under a lot of scrutinies after his poor showing against West Indies and South Africa. And, because of that many of the people have gone on record to criticise him and advised the board to remove him from the squad. But, former Indian skipper, Sourav Ganguly has other plans for the 21-year-old wicketkeeper-batsman.
In a column for The Times of India, he wrote, “There has been talk about Pant’s shot selection and rightly so but all must understand, he will learn and only get better.”
Ganguly also went on to state that Pant is a longterm bet for India and also a solution of India’s woes. He wrote, “He has a young batting unit under him and all of them will need a lot of support from the captain, at the top of the list will be Rishabh Pant. His entry into international cricket has been brilliant and for me, he is India’s solution for all the formats. He is a match-winner and a longterm bet for India.”
Ganguly also said that one should not take India’s 1-1 series draw with South Africa too seriously. He wrote, “India last played against Australia at home in T20 games and now against South Africa and the results have not been a happy one for them but that can happen in sport. One has to give credit to South Africa for their fightback to level the series in the third T20.”
He added, “The T20 World Cup is in Australia next year and it is quite natural that a lot of so-called interested parties in cricket will jump up and down, passing their opinions and judgements about all that can happen. The key person amidst all this will be Virat Kohli and it will be important for him to stay calm for a long period of time.”
India will next take on South Africa in the three-match Test series. Rishabh Pant is expected to take the role of wicketkeeper/batsman, but there are also rumours about Wriddhiman Saha replacing him due to the latter’s inconsistency.
