Rishabh Pant’s struggle to cement his place in India’s T20I team continues, thanks to his failure to deliver with the bat in the format consistently, and former India cricketer Ajay Jadeja believes that the team’s role-playing policy has played a big role in the same.
He further said that Pant has not fitted into any role in the Indian team and that’s why the young wicketkeeper-batter has not been able to deliver goods in T20I cricket, resulting in him being in and out of the playing XI for the past year.
He said there is a lack of clarity over his role in the T20I set-up.
Speaking on Cricbuzz, Ajay Jadeja said: “Because the Indian team has moved on to role-playing acts, and he’s not fitted into any role, that’s where he has lost out. DK played a fabulous knock. With that role-play that he is doing, it works. If he wasn’t in that role-play business and was batting at No. 4 like in the early part of his career, then, 46 on this surface, how can you throw it away?”
He also suggested Pant learn from Dinesh Karthik, who went through a similar phase for most of his international career, but now he has invented himself in other roles to get back into the team.
Jadeja further explained, “He’s got a mate in DK to learn from. He can ask him, ‘listen, what do I need to do? Is there something I am missing out on? You’ve gone through this. Show me the way.’ No matter how big a fan I am, how long will you persist with him? There is no dearth of talent, and it is just this format. So, it is something that he has to figure out.”
He signed off by saying, “He doesn’t have to go too far, he just has to look at his batting partner. It’s taken Karthik 15 years for the team to start believing and accepting. DK had similar talent. The team kept bringing him back. But if you don’t deliver, the team leaves you out eventually, somewhere.”
