Despite scoring three to four half-centuries, Pant has failed to score a single century - which is something that tells a lot about him, according to Gambhir.
Rishabh Pant scored his first ODI half-century during the series opener against the West Indies. Much to the fans joy, it looked like he was regaining his form after struggling to perform fairly well. However, not everyone is impressed with his performance. A not-so-impressed Gautam Gambhir took a dig at Pant and gave him some advice.
The 21-year-old player came under fire on numerous occasions after failing to show some significant improvement and drive towards winning games he played in. Being the replacement for MS Dhoni, the immense pressure got to him which made fans and other former Indian cricket players look down on him. Even his score of 71 runs in the first ODI wasn’t enough to satisfy the critics.
Noting Pant’s performance in the first ODI match against the West Indies, Gautam Gambhir said that he needs to be consistent with his performances. ‘He has to repay the faith shown on him by the team management and start converting fifties into hundreds’.
‘He needs to be consistent, he is playing in all three formats. He is not playing Test cricket but he is part of the squad which shows the faith from the team management – but he still needs to get more consistent. He needs to convert the 60-70s into 100 as well, that’s what MS Dhoni used to do a lot as well. Even if would not get those big 100s, he should be their righty till the end’, said Gambhir.
He added that despite scoring half centuries, Pant is yet to score his first century in the format. ‘He has scored 3-4 half-centuries but he hasn’t converted any of them into a 100. He needs to get one 100, because once you get that one international 100, you start enjoying the pace of that and then they keep coming, till the time you don’t get one international 100 you will never know how it feels like to get that for your country’.
India will face the West Indies in their second-of-three ODIs. India has odds of -322.58 while West Indies has odds of +260. To find out more about India’s upcoming matches, visit Betwala’s page.
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