Suresh Raina Strongly Defends Rishabh Pant
Apr 15, 2020 at 4:00 PM
The veteran Indian left-handed middle-order batsman Suresh Raina has backed the Indian young wicketkeeper-batsman Rishabh Pant, who has recently been criticised continuously for weak performances.
The 22-year-old Rishabh Pant made his international debut in February 2017 through the T20I cricket. Later, in the second half of 2018, the wicketkeeper-batsman made his Test and ODI debuts. Pant impressed with his batting and wicketkeeping skills in the early period of his international career. But when he got the bigger roles in the national team, the youngster has continuously failed to perform strongly.
Though Pant got some good starts in recent times too, he mostly lost the wickets in poor ways due to the wrong shot selections. Sometimes his dismissal put the team into the deep trouble. He has also struggled to maintain consistency in wicketkeeping. Due to his continuous weak performances, Pant has been removed from the playing XI of each format.
Suresh Raina has claimed that Pant is a very talented cricketer. According to Raina, the youngster now needs proper guidance. Talking more about this, Raina brought the example of his early career for India where Yuvraj Singh used to guide him along with other seniors.
During the recent Instagram live session for his IPL team Chennai Super Kings (CSK), Raina said, “Rishabh Pant is very talented. Someone has to step up and guide him. When I used to play, Yuvi (Yuvraj Singh) paa used to tell me you make mistakes and we will guide you. So Rishabh should be backed.”
Rishabh Pant is missing something: Suresh Raina
Raina has also reminded that Pant has Test centuries outside the Asian soil. The left-handed batsman Pant has hit two Test centuries, one in England and the other one in Australia. Raina believes that Pant somehow is not getting confidence enough due to missing something.
Raina added, “He has hundreds abroad and he is not a fluke player. Somewhere I think he is not getting confidence..he is missing something.”
Rishabh Pant has played 13 Tests, 16 ODIs and 28 T20Is till the date. The left-handed batsman has scored 814 Test runs (average 38.76), 374 ODI runs (average 26.71) and 410 T20I runs (average 20.50).