India’s stand-in captain Rishabh Pant had a bad run with the bat in the five-match T20I series against South Africa. In the first four games of the series, Pant scored 29, 5, 6, and 17 respectively.
Apart from a string of low scores, Pant also faced harsh criticism for the way he got dismissed as they followed the same pattern, where South Africans bowled wide outside off stump and he just continued trying to go aerial, despite not being in a good position. As a result, he ended up getting thick outside edges and got dismissed cheaply.
Former India cricketer Parthiv Patel suggested that the explosive southpaw can go across his crease to get closer to the ball.
Talking to ‘Cricbuzz Live’ ahead of the series decider in Bengaluru, Parthiv said, “He can do a tactical change. He can use the crease and decide where would he stand. He can move towards off stump so that he can come closer to the ball.”
He also added that the pattern of Pant’s dismissals was a concern. “You must also see, how the bowlers have found a pattern. But the thing that concerns me is that he is not able to break the pattern of getting out ridiculously,” said Patel.
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Meanwhile, Ashish Nehra stated that Pant's participation in the T20 World Cup 2022 should not be considered confirmed, citing three other options who can play bas keeper in Indian T20I team.
According to Nehra, Pant is an "all-format player" who has more opportunities to recover his form than Shreyas Iyer, who is still not an automatic choice on the Test side. He was responding to a fan question on Pant's dismal performance in T20 cricket.
“Right from day one we knew he(Pant) is going to be popular. He came the first day and then got dropped as he flopped initially. Then he came back and made a name for himself. I am very sure he will be disappointed with the kind of T20 numbers he had,” said Nehra.
Replying to the question asked by the fan, Nehra added, “The question this person asked was ‘can Team India play T20 cricket without Pant? Yes, Why Not. T20 World Cup is very far away. There is no stamp that says Pant will surely play the T20 World Cup. He can also get injured. But there are lot of games in between. We will have ten T20Is and then the Asia Cup.”
“One good thing about Pant is that he plays all three formats. Others play only T20I, and if they don’t perform well in these limited chances, they will have some problems.”
“You have Ishan Kishan, Sanju Samson. You also have Dinesh Karthik.”
(Cricbuzz inputs)
