‘Just seems to get better and get better’ – Rohit Sharma terms India youngster a ‘game-changer’
Rishabh-Rohit(image source: Twitter)
Rohit Sharma has recently taken up the charge as the captain of India in all formats. In the recently concluded two-match Test series against Sri Lanka, India emerged victorious by a margin of 2-0 under Rohit’s leadership.
After the win, the Indian captain was seen heaping praises on the dynamic keeper-batsman of the team, Rishabh Pant. Fans have already noticed the change in Pant’s approach towards building an innings, especially in red-ball cricket. From being an overly aggressive batsman in his initial days he has shown remarkable maturity in his approach lately.
Pant scored 185 runs in the recently concluded series at a strike rate of over 120. This feat was remarkable, given the fact that the format was Test cricket. He also scored a half-century off 28 deliveries in the second innings of the second Test. With this, he broke the 40-year-old record of Kapil Dev (30 deliveries) of the fastest half-century by an Indian in Test cricket.
As the match and the series concluded Indian captain praised Pant’s temperament in batting, while he made particular note of the keeper’s improvement behind the stumps.
“His batting is his batting. We know how he bats and as a team, we just want to give him that freedom to bat in the way that he wants to bat. But also keeping in mind certain situations of the game, where the game is going, we have also conveyed that to him, but we want to stick with his game plan as a team. It just seems to get better and get better – his game plans, Rohit said during the post-match conference.
There will be times when you will smash your head and say ‘why did he play that shot’ but again we need to be ready to accept that with him when he bats. And he is somebody who can change the game in 40 minutes.”
“The most significant factor of his in this series was his keeping. His keeping was best that I have seen. He kept well when England came last year and he seems to get better every time he keeps wickets for India, so that is something that I have been very impressed with.
“And also, the DRS calls seems to be making the right calls. DRS, we all know – it’s like a lottery. I have made it very clear with Rishabh what I want. There are certain aspects of the game that I have told him to look into and that’s about it. DRS calls are not something you will always get it right. There will be times when you will be making wrong calls. But that’s absolutely okay,” he added.
