Former India spinner Ravichandran Ashwin hailed wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant's defensive technique after the conclusion of the 2024-25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy. Pant endured an inconsistent series with the bat, amassing just 255 runs at an average of 28.33.
The southpaw scored just one half-century in nine innings, despite making several solid starts. Again, Pants In the final Test at Sydney, he showed his versatility with extremely difficult batting wickets with 98-ball 40 and 33-ball 61 in the first and second innings respectively.
Speaking on his YouTube channel, Ashwin hailed Pant's defensive skills and felt that the first 40 had unfairly flown under the radar during the second innings attack.
“We have to understand that Rishabh Pant rarely defends. He has one of the best defenses in world cricket. Defense has become a difficult aspect, he has the best defense with a soft hand. The nets, he is not in hand, he is not getting an edge, he has the best defense The idea about Rishabh was that he plays a lot of shots, he has to fight against that in Test cricket,” he said.
Ashwin added:
“I've always grown up hearing you struggle with it. In Sydney he hit two different knocks in one game. He was hit all over the place and scored 40, which will be Rishabh Pant's least talked about knock. Very unfair in the second innings, he got a lot of praise. won, everyone forgot the first shot and praised him for the second shot.”
Ashwin played with Pant in Team India for several years and recently retired in the middle of the Australian series.
Pant, meanwhile, boasts impressive Test numbers of almost 3,000 runs at an average of over 42 in 43 outings.
“Rishabh Pant is yet to realize his full potential” – Ravichandran Ashwin
Ravichandran Ashwin feels that Rishabh Pant is yet to realize his full potential with the bat. He urged the goalkeeper to work on finding the ideal balance between defense and attack.
Despite some heroic efforts in the past, Pant has come under heavy criticism for being dismissed prematurely while playing rushed shots during the Australian series.
“We have to explain to him properly what to do when he has to hit hard or deliberately. He didn't get a lot of runs but he didn't play like a no-run. He has a lot of time. Rishabh Pant is yet to reach his full potential.”
He concluded:
“He's got all the shots — the reverse sweep, the slow sweep, everything — but the problem is, all those shots are high-risk shots. With his defense, if he faces 200 balls, he'll definitely score every game. It's about finding. If he If he combines all these, he will score 100 runs in every game.
Pant played a big role of India back-to-back Test series wins in Australia in 2018/19 and 2020/21.
However, its sub-par shows the last series It meant India lost 1-3 to surrender the Border-Gavaskar Trophy to Australia.
Edited by Arshit Garg