Rishabh Pant played a fabulous knock of 109 off 128 balls in the first Test against Bangladesh at Chepauk Stadium in Chennai. Paired with Shubman Gill’s ton, India are on a pedestal and are inching towards an emphatic win. Pant, who is known to play some out-of-the-blue shots and attacking cricket, often gets called out for lacking the technique to defend the ball.
Regarding the southpaw’s batting style, former Indian cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar compared him to former captain MS Dhoni. Pant has always been regarded as a capable Dhoni replacement, and the wicketkeeper-battler is building his name in that role. Manjrekar also mentioned that Pant does a decent job of selecting which bowlers to attack.
“We are looking at a deceptive package with Rishabh. You can see how many dot balls he hit in his innings at Shubman Gill’s underneath that. He is thus prepared to participate in the defensive strategy that we have witnessed numerous times in the past. Similar to Dhoni, who had a strong defensive style, he has a decent defensive technique. People speak about Dhoni’s leadership and big-hitting ability, but Rishabh Pant and Dhoni both had decent defensive strategies, Manjrekar said.
It’s about Rishabh Pant playing as per the situation: Sanjay Manjrekar
Pant and Gill put up 167 runs for the fourth wicket together. They were so proficient with the bat that they scored 124 runs in a short period of time without exerting any effort. The southpaw hit at a pace of about ninety, and Manjrekar observed that Virender Sehwag, a former opener for India, played a similar style to him. Additionally, he emphasized Pant’s significance for the forthcoming five-match away series against Australia.
“We’ve witnessed these periods, but Pant needs to play the situation, sometimes based on his emotions, but he also needs to be extremely cautious when selecting the correct bowlers so long as there were off-spinners bowling and he wasn’t taking too many risks.
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He thus resembles Virender Sehwag in that he is the type of player who has his own method of scoring runs and his own goals. Manjrekar said, “They [India] really need him when they go to Australia.