“Pant sacrificed batting sessions for that. I don’t see any modern cricketer doing it”: Sridhar makes a tremendous disclosure.
“Pant sacrificed batting sessions for that. I don’t see any modern cricketer doing it”: Sridhar makes a tremendous disclosure. Rishabh Pant, a young wicketkeeper and batter on Team India may have learned a lot from the Test series against Australia. Before the series, Pant was having trouble getting back on the Indian limited-overs team because of his inconsistent play. As a result, he lost his spot to KL Rahul. But India’s shocking batting collapse in the first Test of the series against Australia (36 all out in the second innings in Adelaide) led the Indian team management to choose Pant instead of Wriddhiman Saha.
From then on, Pant didn’t look back. The 24-year-old scored a brilliant 97 in the third Test and then went on to play an unbeaten 89-run innings in Gabba. This helped India get a 2-1 series win. After that, Pant slowly got back on the Indian team in all three formats. And in June of this year, he led the team in a five-match T20I series against South Africa.
T20I World Cup scenario
Pant is in India’s 15-person T20 World Cup team. The team’s former fielding coach, R Sridhar, has now talked about how hard Pant has worked, especially on his wicketkeeping skills. In Tests, Pant was often passed over for Wriddhiman Saha because Saha was a better wicketkeeper. However, Sridhar said that Pant worked on his glovework so much that one could write a “book” about it.
Here’s what Sridhar said!
“He is come up leaps and bounds as a wicketkeeper. The way he has worked to improve his wicketkeeping… I was very fortunate to be a small part of his journey and to see him evolve as a wonderful wicketkeeper, especially in subcontinent conditions,” Sridhar said on cricket.com.
“His keeping abilities had always remained in question, especially against wicketkeepers on turning tracks. Covid came, he worked hard at home, he came into the IPL and he didn’t have a great IPL, he lost his place to KL Rahul as wicketkeeper. He would remember that as a defining moment of his career because that made him work harder. In adversity, he found out better of himself.”
“He worked hard so hard on that Australian tour. It was mind-boggling. He sacrificed batting sessions to improve his wicketkeeping. I don’t see any modern-day cricketer doing that. He did that. He went drill after drill to improve his footwork, glove-work, reaction skills, hand-eye coordination skills. I can write a book about it. I can go on and on. He worked really hard,” Sridhar revealed.
Between Pant and DK
Pant is still India’s first-choice wicketkeeper-batsman in Tests and ODIs. Still, veteran India star Dinesh Karthik is giving him a lot of trouble in T20Is. As a result, DK made a strong return to the international team after this year’s Indian Premier League.