Former Indian wicket-keeper batsman Deep Dasgupta believes Rishabh Pant is a much better batsman than what he has shown in the ongoing series against England and he needs to trust his defense in difficult conditions. It has been noticed that Pant tries to play his natural attacking style when the conditions are tough but he has decent defensive skills to play out the difficult phase.
Pant hasn’t fired at all cylinders in the ongoing series against England as he hasn’t shown enough patience whenever the conditions have been tough for the batsman. However, Pant played according to the match situation in the second innings of the Oval Test as he scored a matured knock of 50 runs off 106 runs. In fact, Pant was dismissed while trying to play the big shot against Chris Woakes in the first innings without getting settled at the crease.
Pant added a crucial alliance of 100 runs with Shardul Thakur and curbed his natural game to deliver the goods for the team. The southpaw played a crucial knock as India was not yet in the position of supremacy when Virat Kohli was dismissed in the second innings. Thus, the Pant-Thakur partnership was crucial in taking India’s lead past 350.
Deep Dasgupta said on BBC Test match Special podcast, “Rishabh, the maturity with which he batted in that second innings. That’s something that he needs to ponder over, think about it. The way he approached that innings. He is a much better batter than what he has shown in this series apart from that last innings.”
“Every time it seems like the ball is moving around a bit, he wants to just go and be ultra-aggressive. He still has a very good defensive game. He needs to trust his defensive games on surfaces where the ball is doing a bit, which till now, he hasn’t.”
There is no doubt that this knock will add a shot in the arm for Rishabh Pant and he will look to continue the good show in the final Test match. Pant has scored 146 runs in seven innings at an average of 20.86 in the series.
The fifth and final Test match will take place at Old Trafford, Manchester from September 10.
