India will face England in the fifth Test, which has been rescheduled for July 1, in Birmingham. The match will determine the series' outcome in which India leads 2-1 and was put on hold last year as COVID-19 infected the Indian camp.
The Indian cricket team is up 2-1 in the series, and it only needs a draw to win its fourth Test series in England. India had previously won three-Test series in 1971, 1986, and 2007. The Rohit Sharma-led team has got a good chance of winning yet another historic series.
Former India cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar named the player he thinks can be the 'X-factor' for India against England.
In an exclusive interview with NDTV, Manjrekar said, "Rishabh Pant! I know Rohit Sharma is there at the top, there's Virat Kohli and other great batters. Pujara's defiance is there, there's some good bowling in Shami and Bumrah. They will be game changes with the ball. But in his very short career test career Rishabh Pant has notched up three great Test innings and in different conditions, different oppositions.
“So you're like Ben Stokes, if you've got to look at one player from India, you almost won India game, South Africa, as well, with that 100 that he got, Pant is the man. If England's got Ben Stokes then India's got Rishabh Pant," said Manjrekar.
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The veteran also sounded confident that Pant could be impactful in red-ball cricket despite having a bad run with the bat in the T20 format.
"Yes, because the formats are different. And so far, we've seen that Rishabh Pant has been a formidable Test player. While he's been putting together all the exceptional performances at the Test level, his white-ball batting has not been quite up there. So there's a disconnection almost between his performance in white-ball cricket versus red-ball cricket," Manjrekar said.
"This is a guy who makes an impact playing Test cricket because he goes about things very differently. He's not pushed to start hitting a straightaway. So there'll be occasions where he will be playing or 20 dot balls and then hit three sixes depending on the condition, the bowler at the opposite end. So I think the Test format allows Rishabh Pant to be a little more imaginative, allows him to be not pushed, he can take his time and decide when he wants to hit and which the moment to do it.
“So for the moment, it seems like the Test format provides the kind of setting that he seems to enjoy. Whatever happens in the white ball format, I don't see that have any bearing at all on his performances at the Test level. We've seen that in the last two three years," Manjrekar added.
(NDTV inputs)
