The curious case of Rishabh Pant

With the world’s eyes focused on the World Cup in England, a former India southpaw decided to hang up his boots. This wasn’t just any former player with a handful of caps - in fact - he is one of the only 5 men to have played more than 300 ODIs for India. Not only that – he is the only male cricketer to have won all 4 ICC Limited overs title - World Cups (U-19, T20I and ODI) and Champions Trophy. For anyone who followed Cricket in the 2000s, Yuvraj Singh and his incredible achievements are hard to miss but this is even truer right now, at a time when India is looking to establish a middle order.

The reason I bring up Yuvraj is because there are a number of similarities with Rishabh Pant . Both were identified as a special talent very early on and took no time to jump from the U-19 team to the senior team. Both southpaws had/have the ability to floor any opposition with incredible stroke play. Yuvraj started his senior team journey with some mesmerizing stroke-play filled 84 against Australia back in 2000 and over the next decade (and a bit), he made a special place for himself in India’s limited overs history.

Yet, what a lot of people forget is how even Yuvraj took time to settle in. After his first year of international cricket, Yuvraj had played 13 ODIs and averaged just under 23. Compare that to Pant - 12 ODIs spread across the last year, Pant has managed to score at average 22.9. Even in his next year (2001) of international cricket, Yuvraj managed just 1 more 50+ score over 12 innings at a shade under 24. While he made an impact with his amazing fielding right away, It wasn’t until 2002 when Yuvraj started consistently delivering with the bat and the Natwest Final of that year stands out as a turning point in his career.

Despite popular opinion about Sourav Ganguly’s influence in Yuvraj’s rise among Indian fans – his best period came under Rahul Dravid. Dravid took over India’s captaincy in 2005 with an eye on the World Cup of 2007. Greg Chappell – India’s coach at the time identified India’s poor record in run chases as a potential problem and Dravid decided to take up the problem head on by choosing to bowl first every time he won the toss. This is when Yuvraj really came into his own and played a crucial part along with skipper Dravid and MS Dhoni in helping India set a world record of 17 consecutive successful run chases. This 2005-2008 phase was certainly Yuvraj’s peak where he scored 8 off his 14 ODI centuries averaging a touch under 45. So even someone as gifted as Yuvraj needed close to 5 years to reach his consistent best, even though there were innings of brilliance here and there during that 5 year period.

Let’s look at how the current team has been treating Pant. In ODIs, Pant made his debut just under 1 year ago and in that duration India has played 30 ODIs. Pant has featured in only 12 of those and his selection has been extremely inconsistent. He played 3 ODIs on the trot, then got dropped for the next 13 before being picked right before the World Cup for 2 more games. Not initially selected for the World Cup, he eventually made it to England based on an injury to Vijay Shankar.

Similarly in T20Is, Rishabh Pant has featured in only half the games India has played since his debut in Feb 2017. After a couple of games, he was dropped until March the next year where he got 2 more chances and then again got dropped for 6 months. He is often criticized for being reckless with his shot making and averages 20.3 at a strike rate of 123 after 19 innings. Yet, even MS Dhoni after his first 18 T20I innings managed to score at 22 and a strike-rate of 100 and that is when Dhoni had already established himself in the ODI prior to the introduction of T20 cricket.

Test cricket was the only format where Pant has played consistently thanks to the injury to Wriddhiman Saha. After making his debut, Pant played all 11 test matches until the ongoing one in Vizag. In this time, Pant managed to score hundreds on his first tour to Australia and England - a feat only matched amongst Indians by Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag. Not just that, he scored more runs than MS Dhoni has ever in a series in Australia. Saha is a better wicket-keeper than Pant and there is little doubt about it, however in terms of batting Saha is not nearly as impactful as Pant. If wicket-keeping ability was the sole reason of picking Saha, then why did Pant start in the recent tour of the Carribean where Saha was available?

India have been playing musical chairs with the #4 & #5 positions in one-days for the last 2-3 years. The only batsman (Ambati Rayudu) who got a consistent run and did well was dropped right before the World Cup just because of 1 good series by Vijay Shankar. There is little doubt that the fragility of the middle order cost India the World Cup and yet it seems like Virat Kohli and the team management haven’t learnt the lessons. With not one but TWO T20 World Cups coming up in the next two years, India really need to give a consistent run to the likes of Rishabh Pant and allow him to settle in.