The 20-year-old Rishabh Pant, who is captaining Delhi in the ongoing Ranji Trophy final, has made it clear on Friday (December 29) that he is not at all worried by the national chief selector MSK Prasad’s remark on budding wicket-keepers batsman in the country.
After announcing the Indian ODI squad for South Africa tour, Prasad had stated that Mahendra Singh Dhoni will continue to play till the 2019 World Cup as some of the younger keepers, who have been tried, are not even close to the former Indian captain's level.
"There is no comparison and I don't see any wicket-keeper, who can even come close to him (Dhoni) in world cricket, leave alone Indian Cricket," MSK Prasad had quoted while addressing the media after revealing the team for South Africa ODIs.
"We are grooming some wicketkeepers during India ‘A’ tours. But more or less, we have fixed up (our) minds till the World Cup (on continuing with Dhoni) and after that at later stages we will start grooming some of those (wicket- keepers),” the chairman of selectors had further asserted.
Reacting on the same, Rishabh Pant said his only job is to score runs and perform to the best of his abilities.
"I should not worry about all this. I don't think about all this at all. My job is to perform, score as many runs as possible," Pant was quoted by PTI as saying after the end of first day’s play against Vidarbha in the Ranji Trophy finals in Indore.
The seven times Ranji Champions Delhi didn’t start their much-anticipated final against Vidarbha on a positive note as they lost their top 4 batsmen within the score of 100. Seasoned campaigner and the centurion of semi-final – Gautam Gambhir could only made 15 off 38 balls while skipper Pant perished for 21.
Amidst the collapse, Dhruv Shorey stood firm and showed that there was nothing wrong in the pitch. Shorey compiled a fluent 123 with 17 boundaries to his name as Delhi ended up with 271-6 at stumps.
Sharing his experience after the day’s play, Shorey said, "It is all about staying in there, it is all about taking your time, and on these wickets it is very important that you take your time because if you don't and go for your shots then most probably you would get out.
"So, I took my time initially, I gave respect to the bowlers, and after that it was my session. The situation is not too bad. But we could have done better we lost two extra wickets. But still we can revive and we do have a long tail,” he added.
