Virat Kohli’s childhood coach Rajkumar Sharma believes the team should back Rishabh Pant’s natural game as there is no point in forcing him to play responsibly. Pant has an aggressive style of batting and he has savored great success in Test cricket.
However, the left-hander is yet to grab his chances in the limited-overs format. Sharma feels India should allow Pant to play aggressively as he is at his best when he plays his natural game.
Pant has played a key role in the success of the team in some big Test matches wins in the overseas conditions. The left-hander scored a counter-attacking knock of 46 runs off just 45 balls in the first innings of the opening Test match against Bangladesh at Chhatogram.
Rajkumar Sharma believes Pant should take calculative risks as he is now an experienced player in the team.
Speaking to India News, Rajkumar Sharma said, “When Rishabh Pant’s shots come off, people call him a match-winner. But when he is caught a couple of feet inside the boundary, people call him irresponsible. I feel when you have such a stroke player, you should take the chance and let him play his natural game. There’s no point in forcing him to play responsibly. I just hope he takes more calculative risks because he is a senior player in the team now.”
On the other hand, Sharma was all praise on Cheteshwar Pujara, who scored a total of 192 runs in the first Test match against the Tigers. Pujara scored a fine knock of 90 runs on a difficult pitch in the first innings and then broke the 52 Test innings drought of a century in the second essay.
“Pujara’s role has always been to hold one end and let the other batters bat around him. However, he showed that when the team needed quick runs, he was ready to take on the opposition bowlers. This shows that he is a true team man and this is a sign of a great team that different players are ready to adapt according to the situation.”
The second Test match will be played at Dhaka from Thursday.
India’s updated squad for 2nd Test against Bangladesh: KL Rahul (C), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara (VC), Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant (WK), KS Bharat (WK), Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Shardul Thakur, Mohd. Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Saurabh Kumar, Jaydev Unadkat.
