The young Indian wicket-keeper batsman, Rishabh Pant has been going through a rough patch in his career and it has been a cause for concern for the Indian team management. There have been some strong statements in the media regarding his dismal show at the much-talked-about No.4 position from the likes of head coach Ravi Shastri and batting coach Vikram Rathour.
In an interview with NDTV, former India cricketer Yuvraj Singh said Pant “has a lot of potentials” but needs some mentoring from the captain and the coach. He said, “Someone needs to mentor Rishabh according to his character. Suppressing Rishabh won’t get the best out of him.”
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He further added, “He has a lot of potentials, the captain and the coach need to mentor him. The team needs to stop making statements about Rishabh in the media. Rishabh Pant has the best match-winning ability. The mental aspect of the players needs to be addressed.”
So far, Pant has been preferred as an apt replacement for MS Dhoni, who has taken a sabbatical from the game. There has been a lot of speculation regarding Dhoni’s future and Yuvraj feels that finding a replacement for the former India captain “will take a lot of time”.
Both Shastri and Rathour had spoken about Pant needing to be more careful with his batting after India’s tour of the West Indies. Ahead of India’s second T20I match against South Africa, Shastri had warned the youngsters of a “rap on his knuckles” if he continued to play rash shots and Rathour echoed his sentiments, saying the youngster should play fearless cricket but not careless cricket.
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Pant has hardly scored runs in the three-match T20I series against the West Indies with a high score of 65 *. He failed miserably in the ODI series, scoring 20 runs in two innings at a strike rate of 55.55. During the Test series, Pant didn’t fare any better, managing just 58 runs in three innings at a dismal average of 19.33.
