After roaring back to form with a sublime 99-run knock in the Ranji Trophy tie, Delhi star Rishabh Pant has insisted he was not under any pressure despite the lack of runs.
The 20-year old was all over the news with his stunning exploits in domestic cricket last year. He had hogged the limelight after slamming a belligerent 308 off 326 balls against Maharashtra in Ranji Trophy before hitting a 48-ball hundred against Jharkhand, one of the fastest first-class centuries by an Indian. He went on to finish the Ranji Trophy with a staggering 972 runs in only eight outings including four centuries and a couple of the fifties. The performance helped him to earn his maiden India call-up for the T20I series against England.
However, he did not get the chance to make his debut. But he once again caught the attention with a good outing in the Indian Premier League and was rewarded with a place in the standby list for the Champions Trophy. He then made his much-awaited against West Indies in a T20I but failed to live up to the hype, and his barren run with the bat continued after that before the 99-run knock against Maharashtra.
However, the left-handed batsman refused to admit that he was under pressure because of his poor form as he said a cricketer cannot dwell on his past failures which can hamper his future.
“There was no pressure, so why will I feel relieved? This is cricket. You have good days, you have bad days. You can’t afford to put yourself under too much pressure and risk ruining your future games too. There will be days when you will score runs, there will be days when you won’t. This is a part of a cricketer’s life,” he was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo.
The highly-rated wicketkeeper-batsman further said that he had learnt a lot from his senior Delhi teammates as well as his brief spell with the Indian team.
“You get to learn from seniors,” he said. “Whatever time I spent in the Indian team, I learnt. Here, too, there is Gauti bhaiya [Gambhir, who has first-hand experience of insecurities as a young cricketer] and Ishant bhaiya [Ishant Sharma, who is now the Delhi captain]. There is no minimum age to learn these things. The sooner you learn, the sooner you will grow as a cricketer.”
Pant also dismissed any chance of altering his batting approach.
“The game that has got you runs, if you stick to it, you give yourself the best chance to keep scoring runs,” he said. “Rather than running after changes, stay positive and back your game. I used to feel bad that I was not actually putting the runs on the board, but there was no special pattern to my dismissals, which might make me change my game.”
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