Veteran India spinner Harbhajan Singh wants India wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant to be more consistent with the bat in the remaining three Tests of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25 as well. He also added that the dashing stroke player needs to play as per the situation.
India and Australia are levelled 1-1 heading into the third Test, starting in Brisbane on Saturday, December 14, of the five-match series as well. Meanwhile, Pant hasn’t yet scored a fifty in the series, with a 37-run knock in the visitors’ first innings of the first Test in Perth being his best effort as well.
During a discussion on the Star Sports show ‘Game Plan’, Harbhajan Singh said, “You definitely expect that from him. It’s not that Rishabh Pant has come to Australia for the first time, and no one knows what he would do. He is known for knocks like the one he played in Brisbane (in the 2020-21 BGT), and today also that match is remembered for Rishabh Pant and Shubman Gill, who were youngsters, winning us that match.”
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“It was a historic match but more consistency is required from him. He needs to apply himself a little more. It’s okay that he plays the scoop and reverse sweep, but I feel when the situation and team need him to play solidly, he has to show that, and then only the consistency would come,” the former India spinner further added.
During a separate discussion on Star Sports, Sunil Gavaskar also spoke negatively when he was asked whether Rishabh Pant would replicate his Adelaide belligerent approach in Brisbane as well.
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“I don’t think he will play like that at least until he gets set. Here (in Adelaide), he got in to play in the second innings knowing that the situation looked pretty hopeless, and so he decided that he was going to take the bull by the horns. That was the attempt that he made, and he actually threw the Australians off for that little period in the evening on Day 2 when suddenly Boland, who was looking so good, was made to change his line and length. That is what Rishabh Pant does,” Sunil Gavaskar concluded.
