Pant failed to impress with the bat in the recently concluded T20I series against South Africa.
After a string of low scores, Rishabh Pant has been facing harsh criticism. The explosive keeper-batter had a disappointing run with the bat in the IPL 2022 campaign and had an equally unimpressive performance in the recently concluded T20I series against South Africa. According to former Pakistani cricketer Danish Kaneria, one of the reasons behind Pant’s bad performance is his weight.
Pant's physical fitness has already been questioned. Kaneria believes Pant is falling behind many others in this area, despite the fact that a new training regimen was implemented when Virat Kohli initially became India's captain.
"Rishabh Pant's fitness is not up to the mark and is very low. I would say it's rather mediocre. There was a massive change in terms of the team's fitness standards when Kohli took over the captaincy. But Pant is lagging behind when compared to others," Kaneria said on his official YouTube channel.
SLW v INDW 2022: Skipper Harmanpreet Kaur stars in India’s series-clinching victory in second T20I
Kaneria also brought India skipper Rohit Sharma's fitness under question. Kaneria, however, granted Rohit a pass because he is a pure batter. But the former Pakistani spinner believes that for Pant fitness is a much more important issue.
"Although Rohit Sharma too isn't very fit, he is a batter, and it is fine for him. But Pant has to improve his fitness as he is a wicketkeeper. Even at this young age, we've seen how he hasn't been able to crouch properly while keeping in recent games. This is due to his weight issues. It has an effect on his flexibility too. He plays with an approach of hitting the bowlers right from the onset. Mental toughness and maturity will also only come with fitness," he explained.
Dinesh Karthik, who is 37 years old, is far more physically fit than Pant. Kaneria believes Pant would face a challenging competition for the position behind the stumps in T20 Internationals as Karthik has made a great comeback into the Indian lineup.
"When you see Dinesh Karthik, he is super fit even at this age. We've seen that in his batting as well as wicketkeeping. Pant may have scored 70-odd in the warmup game, but he hasn't been consistent and his graph is going down. He will have to fight for his place in the team as there are other options like Dinesh Karthik, Ishan Kishan and Sanju Samson," he further said.