India’s Rishabh Pant often draws flak for throwing away his wicket after getting starts. Despite the criticism, the wicketkeeper batsman on Friday (May 1) revealed his IPL franchise Delhi Capitals’ coach Ricky Ponting gives him the freedom to express himself.
“He gives me a free hand. He says do whatever you want to do,” Pant said during an Instagram chat with his franchise.
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Delhi had an underwhelming IPL campaign in 2018. They managed to fetch only 5 wins out of the 14 matches and finished the league stage as the bottom-placed team.
Amid the disastrous season, Rishabh was the one player who impressed one and all with his spectacular showing. The southpaw had aggregated 684 runs from 14 innings at a strike rate of 158.41 with six half-centuries.
Reflecting on his success in that IPL edition, Pant said: “That was a life-changing season for me. I needed that breakthrough which everyone needs. The core group always thinks of winning IPL for Delhi. We qualified for the knockouts last time and came third.”
Recalling his struggling days, the Roorkee-born Pant said he used to take a bus at 2 o’clock in the night to travel to Delhi for practice.
“They (Uttarakhand) did not have a cricket team at that point. So I used to take the bus at 2 am at night. That time it used to take six hours by road. It was difficult during winters as it was too cold. There was fog also. It’s been a good journey (as I look back). At the end of the day, you have to work hard to achieve your goal.”
Rishabh Pant has played 13 Tests, 16 ODIs, and 28 T20Is for India so far. In his brief international career, the left-hander has already scored one Test century each on English and Australian soil.
Talking about the challenges of playing Test cricket, he said: “I love playing Tests. You can give yourself time. Mostly you can test yourself in Test cricket. When I was playing four-day first-class games, I had heard it is the real test but when I played five-day cricket… it was like you need to put in that extra effort.”
(With PTI inputs)
