Eyebrows have been raised at Rishabh Pant for his recent performances in the T20I series against South Africa, in which he scored just 58 runs in five games at a poor strike rate of 105. The wicketkeeper batsman has come under the scanner for underperforming, and questions are being asked on whether he deserves a place in India’s squad for the T20 World Cup later this year.
Head coach Rahul Dravid has backed Pant, confirming that he is an integral part of India’s scheme of things in the next few months. “Personally, he would have liked to score a few more runs but it is not concerning him. Certainly, he is a very big part of our plans going ahead in next few months," Dravid said during the post-match press conference. "I just don't want to be critical. In the middle overs, you need people to play slightly attacking brand of cricket, to take the game on a little more. Sometimes it's very hard to judge it based on two or three games," the head coach added.
The former India captain also recalled Pant’s performance in the recently concluded IPL 2022, where he scored 340 runs at a strike rate of more than 158.
"I think he had a pretty good IPL in terms of strike-rate even though it might not have looked good on averages. In IPL, he looked to move up a little bit (in terms of averages) and probably three years ago he was on those numbers. We are hoping that we can get those numbers from him at the international level."
India have 13 more T20Is to play before the World Cup begins in October, and Pant will be looking to work on his flaws before that.
