Rishabh Pant Becomes Only 2nd Wicket-Keeper Batter To Win Player Of The Series Award In Tests
Indian wicket-keeper batter Rishabh Pant joined Australian legend, Adam Gilchrist, as the only two wicket-keepers in Test history to win the Player of the Series award. Pant had a fabulous outing in the 2-match Test series against Sri Lanka, scoring 185 runs in 3 innings with a strike rate of 120.
Prior to him, the only other wicket-keeper batter to win the award was Gilchrist, who did it thrice – South Africa tour (2001-02), ICC Super Series Test Match, Trans-Tasman Trophy (2004-05). It is Pant’s first PotS award and with the form he is in, there are many more to come.
His aggressive counter-attacking style of batting is quite a bonus for the Indian team, as witnessed against Lanka. Twice in a row, he managed to blitz his way to the fifties and put India in the driver’s seat from a tricky situation.
“We just want to give Rishabh Pant that freedom to bat” – Rohit Sharma
The team management has made it quite clear to Pant that he has all the freedom in the world to go out and play in his own style. However, the 24-year-old has matured over the years and is capable of playing according to the situation as well.
“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. 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,” Rohit said in the post-match presentation ceremony.
India won the Test series 2-0 and end their home summer season without a loss.
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