Former Indian captain Sunil Gavaskar has slammed Rishabh Pant’s shot which led to his dismissal on day 03 of the fourth test of the Border Gavaskar trophy.
After India struggled to maintain wickets, they lost Rishabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja’s wicket in the opening session of day 03. Pant who was looking good with his form, played a poor shot in Boland’s over.
The delivery was round the wicket and bowls it full around off, Pant crouches low and attempts the scoop shot, gets a top edge and filed towards the third man.
He managed only 28 runs off 37 balls leaving India at 191/6 trailing by 283 runs in the test. After his dismissal, Gavaskar criticised Pant’s shot selection, calling it ‘terrible’ given by the field placements.
Former Indian captain also said that his hitting over long-on or attempting risky shots makes it difficult for wk-batter to perform consistently in tests. Gavaskar suggested that Pant might be better suited to batting lower in the order.
“I think earlier on, when there had been no fielders around, that’s when he’s attempted these shots, that is understandable because you’re taking a very good chance,” said Gavaskar.
“That [the shot] was supposed to go to the leg side, that went to the off side, it actually tells you maybe [there was] a little bit of bad luck involved, but terrible selection of a shot to play at that particular point with two fielders down at deep square-leg and deep point.”
The former cricketer also questioned Pant’s effectiveness at no.5 pointing out his reliance on edged boundaries and a low 50-plus conversion rate.
“It just appears to be that that’s the only way he thinks he’s capable of scoring runs,” Gavaskar said.
“So if he’s not going to be able to score runs the orthodox way, if he’s only thinking that he’s going to go down the pitch, hammering the ball over long-on, or just looking to play these shots, which means at the Test level you can’t always succeed.”
“Then you have got to be prepared for the fact that he will get you some runs sometimes. If that is the case, then he cannot bat at No. 5, he’s got to bat down the order.”
Sunil Gavaskar was on live commentary on Radio at the time of the dismissal and said Pant had led India “down badly” by ‘thrwoing away’ his wicket.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” was Gavaskar’s immediate reaction. “You’ve got two fielders there, and you still go for that, you’ve missed the previous shot. And look where you’ve been caught.”
“You’ve been caught at deep third man. That is throwing away your wicket. Not in the situation that India was. You have to understand the situation as well, you cannot say that that’s your natural game. I’m sorry, that is not your natural game. That is a stupid shot. That is letting your team down badly!” he concluded.
Coming to the match, Nitish Reddy and Washington Sundar forged a 100+ runs partnership to surge India to cross 300+ runs at Melbourne Cricket Ground.
