The young Indian wicket-keeper, Rishabh Pant scored his maiden ODI fifty in the series opener against West Indies in Chennai. And, the fans are happy to watch that the southpaw back in form with the bat as he was struggling to prove his worth with the bat in the national side since long. However, former Indian opener, Gautam Gambhir has come up with cheeky but important advice for the youngster.

Pant has faced some serious criticism on numerous occasions for underperforming since his arrival. He was often been compared with looked down as the replacement for MS Dhoni and some cricketing pundits also raised their voice to try Sanju Samson, who is currently in astonishing form and is also a good wicketkeeper. But, a crucial knock of 71 runs in 1st ODI was enough to shut the mouth of his critics.

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Taking note of Pant’s knock in the series opener against West Indies, Gambhir said that Rishabh needs to improve his conversion rate as well. He has to repay the faith shown on him by the team management and start converting fifties into hundreds. However, it is not important to score a ton but he should spend time on the wicket until the end.

During a show in Star Sports, Gautam said, “He (Pant) needs to be consistent, he is playing in all three formats. He is not playing Test cricket but he is part of the squad which shows the faith from the team management – but he still needs to get more consistent. He needs to convert the 60-70s into 100 as well. Even if he (Pant) would not get those big 100s, he should be their righty till the end.”

The former Indian opener also added that Pant has scored three or four half-centuries but he is yet to get his maiden century in the limited-overs cricket. It is an important thing for him because once he scored his first century then he will start relishing the pace of the games.

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Gambhir elaborated: “He has scored 3-4 half-centuries but he hasn’t converted any of them into a 100. He needs to get one 100, because once you get that one international 100, you start enjoying the pace of that and then they keep coming, till the time you don’t get one international 100 you will never know how it feels like to get that for your country.”