India batting coach Vikram Rathour on Monday (February 14) said the team management is yet to take a call on Rishabh Pant opening the batting in the T20I series against West Indies as part of the experiment.
Pant was promoted to open the batting in the second ODI against West Indies last week and played in the middle order when Shikhar Dhawan was back in the mix.
"We haven't really decided that yet, we still have a couple of days to go. We had a travel day and rest day, so today we have our first practice day, once we get to look at the wicket and the kind of surface we are playing," said Rathour during a virtual press conference, as quoted by ANI.
"We'll then see, we have options available, KL is out I understand, we have Ishan and Ruturaj in the mix, so we will see," he added.
However, the batting coach stressed that Pant is more suited for the middle order going by the team's need currently.
"We have options, Rishabh is a fantastic player, he can play good cricket up the order but it depends what the team needs and what we are looking at," said Rathour.
"I have no doubt that he will be in team post-2023 too but we can utilize him more precisely in the middle order or lower order," he added.
The T20I series between India and West Indies is due to get underway on February 16 in Kolkata.
(With ANI inputs)
