Brian Lara commented on how people are expecting Rishabh Pant to live up to MS Dhoni’s performance.
Former cricket great Brian Lara has stated his opinion on the whole Rishabh Pant fiasco. Personally, Lara feels that immense pressure shouldn’t be placed on Pant in such an early stage in his international career. Pant, who had failed multiple times at-bat and had dropped a few important catches behind the wickets, is still ‘learning the ropes’.
However, it cannot be ignored that Pant’s disastrous performance has led to India suffering as a whole. He was brought into the team as a replacement for MS Dhoni. At first, he was doing fine. However, when his performance took a dive, that’s when critics started blasting him. He is currently averaging 22.90 in ODIs and it doesn’t justify the performance of the 22-year-old.
Lara believes that Pant’s coming into the spotlight created a lot excitement which, in turn, set unrealistic expectations for him. People know that he is capable with the bat because they’ve seen him perform. He is an aggressive cricketer and the fans expect to replace MS Dhoni in no time. Lara also said that Pant is Dhoni; that he is an entirely different player with an entirely different playstyle. ‘It’s unfair to compare two different people’.
With the T20 World Cup a few months away, creating pressure for Pant could be worse for the team. ‘Rishabh Pant came into the game creating a lot of excitement, he had a lot of aggression and the Indian public expects someone to replace (MS) Dhoni immediately and in the same fold but he is a totally different player. I know the time is critical with the World Cup just 8 or 9 months away and they may even go with another keeper but the excessive pressure on him is unnecessary’.
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