India and England are one 1-1 in the five match test series as both the teams head back to London. The Indian team fared woefully with the bat on day one of the 3rd test match at Leeds. India were bowled out for a paltry 78 on day one after Virat Kohli won the toss and chose to bat first. While CricketCult has time and again spoken about the frailties of the middle order, the mercurial talents of Rishabh Pant is also to be given a scrutiny.
Talent alone not enough –
Before we speak about Pant, there are two other glaring examples of Talents that were spoken about in the Indian team in the past few years. Rohit Sharma for years has been called a talent and to his credit he worked on his game pretty hard. Rohit today can be called the best white ball opener and is steadily making his way up in the test format too. Dinesh Karthik who was in England as a commentator was another example who was cited as a talent. Although he showed glimpses of talents, he couldn’t materialize it. In the other end of the spectrum Pant has to taken inspiration from an MS Dhoni who made it to where he is due to sheer hard work. Talent alone isn’t going to serve Pant, he also needs to do the hard yards to make himself useful to team India.
The wavering mind of Rishabh Pant –
The 2nd innings on day 4 of the Leeds test was a perfect example of the mindset of Rishabh Pant. Pant walked into bat and by the time Anderson was nearly at the bowling crease he was still shadow batting. Rishabh Pant lives in a world of his own and it is certainly needed. The need to have a personality is always welcome in world cricket. It is what he does with the bat that has to define where Pant is in terms of importance for Indian cricket. Pant was a mix of confusion and intent on that 4th day at Leeds. One moment he was running down the track trying to smack Anderson over the top, the other moment he was trying to play himself in. its this confusion which caused him to lose his wicket, when he fished an away going delivery to 3rd slip.
Downward spiral –
India has found itself in an uneviable position of having players including their captain and vice captain losing form at the worst time possible. Rishabh Pant who had a great start to 2021 was the flavor of international cricket. Pant suddenly has fallen of the pedestal to give the duo of Shastri performances with the bat. He has been safe behind the wickets but he has been abysmal with the bat. The 23 year old has played all the 3 tests so far and scored 87 runs from the 5 innings with an average of 17.40. Pant scored 45 runs in the WTC final before he missed the only tour game due to testing positive for Coronavirus
The last recognized batsman in the line -up-
We aren’t suggesting or implying that Pant will be dropped for the 4th test starting on Thursday at Oval. Infact he will be given yet another chance to prove his worth. It was in Oval that he scored his first test century during the last tour in 2018. In fact if the noises from the Indian camp are to be believed they could go a bowler light or drop Rahane for Vihari and include Ashwin to replace the injured Jadeja. This will make things interesting for Pant as he will now be the last recognized batsman to bat with the Indian tail.
KL Rahul or Saha as a possible inclusion –
In case Shastri and Kohli want to do away with Pant for the next game, they have two replacements in the squad. They could give the gloves to Saha who is an amazing wicket keeper and also a dependable batsman or could ask KL Rahul to take over the wicket keeping duties. Rahul was the wicket keeper for India during the only practice game against the County XI.
Cricket Cult’s take –
Rishabh Pant like most of the Indian players is under scrutiny after the abysmal loss to England at Leeds. The Indian team needs Pant to step up and deliver as a batsman which the world knows he is capable of. Come Thursday he will be eager to prove his worth but if things go awry he knows he has no one else to blame but himself.