Former Australia National cricket team wicket-keeper batsman Ian Healy named the Indian national cricket team star. Rishabh Pant an “in progress” cricketer.
Ian Healy opined that Rishabh Pant's wicket-keeping is a work in progress and he will need to make a lot of improvements to improve.
Rishabh Pant has 19 dismissals to his name in BGT 2024-25
India's national cricket team's star batsman has not been at his best behind the stumps in the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25.
Pant dropped quite a few catches and looked sloppy while wicketkeeping. However, despite not being at his best, Pant has 19 dismissals to his name.
In three matches in Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane, Rishabh Pant took 19 catches behind the stumps, his best performance being 5 catches in an innings. Also, his strikeout ratio per inning is 3.166.
Pant's numbers are better than the Australian national cricket team's batsman Alex Careywho has 15 dismissals to his name with 13 catches and 2 stumpings and a rstio per innings of 2.5.
Rishabh Pant is a work in progress but I saw him in the morning and like the exercises he does – Ian Healy
Meanwhile, Ian Healy said Pant is bound to improve his keeping skills and pointed out that the Indian superstar sometimes makes wrong initial moves, which causes him to drop catches.
“Rishabh Pant is a work in progress but I saw him in the morning and I liked the exercises he does; it is sure to improve more. Sometimes, like he did when he dropped a catch in it. series sooner, he may make an initial wrong move.
“Some goalkeepers like to move a touch to the left first and then press from there. It's better to be still and if you can't then you start the trigger movement a touch earlier so that by the time the ball is there you can still press to the right side. One of these two decisions has to be made,” Healy told the Indian Express.
Rishabh Pant struggled with the bat in BGT 2024-25
Pant was also poor with the bat in the five-match Test series against the Australian national cricket team. Expectations were quite high from Rishabh Pant when India landed in Australia given his past heroics in the country.
Pant started well and played his natural aggressive game. However, he failed to convert those starts into big scores.
The 27-year-old posted scores of 37, 1, 21, 28 and 9 in the five innings he batted. Overall, he scored just 96 runs at an average of 19.20 and a strike rate of 60.00. His poor return with the bat has been one of the main reasons behind India's struggles in the batting department.