India vs England 2021: Rishabh Pant More Than Ready To Fill MS Dhoni’s Shoes, Feels Rohit Sharma

Rohit Sharma feels that after his superlative batting display on day two of the fourth Test against England at Motera, Ahmedabad, India’s wicketkeeper-batsman Rishabh Pant is more than ready to fill the void left by MS Dhoni’s retirement.

Rishabh Pant has shown some great resurgence with the bat, especially in the Test format in the last year or so. He played a crucial role with the bat in India’s 2-1 Test series win in Australia with scores of 97 in the Sydney Test draw and 89* in Brisbane Test victory. He continued his great form against England as well, scoring 91 in the first Test at Chennai.

He has also improved his keeping a lot, which was seen as he kept brilliantly on a rank turner in the pink-ball Test in Ahmedabad and even in the second Test in Chennai. Given his improvement thus far, Rohit feels Pant is ready to follow in the footsteps of the former captain.

He (Rishabh Pant) Seems To Be Doing A Job For Us: Rohit Sharma

India was staring at conceding a first-innings lead to England who had made 205, with them 146/6 when Ravichandran Ashwin got out. However, Pant took the English bowlers to the cleaners in the final session to take the game away from the visitors and put the hosts in the driver’s seat.

“He seems to be doing a job for us, so he’s more than ready I guess!” said Rohit when asked by reporters in a post-day two press conference.

Team Management Has Given Rishabh Pant License To Play His Game: Rohit Sharma

Rohit also defended Pant’s tactics in Test cricket saying that the wicket-keeper batsman has his own style of batting and one must back him. He also mentioned that the team management had given him the license to freely express himself.

“Pant has his own style of batting. Of course, there have been messages from the team management on how he needs to approach the game but you know he seems to be batting in his own style which seems to be fine.

He is getting the job done and that’s more important for us and you saw in this innings as well. The first half of his innings he was quite respectful and then once we got to 200 he just wanted to take on the bowlers,” said Rohit on Friday.

Pant took 82 balls to reach his first fifty runs. But the next 50 came off just 33 balls as he decided to send the English bowlers on a leather hunt.

Also Read: India vs England 2021: Rishabh Pant Will Be An All-Time Great In All Formats – Sourav Ganguly