Rishabh Pant's Knock At Gabba Can Become A Career-Defining Innings For Him: VVS Laxman

Former India cricketer, VVS Laxman lavishes rich praise on Rishabh Pant after the left-hander took India over the line in an epic chase in Brisbane against Australia. With the help of Pant’s 89* India emerged victorious in the fourth and last Test of the series and won the Border-Gavaskar Trophy on Australian shores for the second time in a row.

VVS Laxman says that while everyone realizes the talent of the southpaw, however, it was imperative that the youngster converts his potential to on-field performances. Laxman is impressed with Pant’s ‘exemplary’ batting at the Gabba, and terms it as a career-defining innings. After being promoted to bat over Mayank Agarwal, Pant took his time before playing attacking shots.

“We all knew he had the caliber to win matches, he had all strokes in the book and at the same time, he had the ability to hit boundaries and sixes at will of good deliveries. But what he showed at Gabba was just exemplary batting under pressure,” VVS Laxman told Star Sports.

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“Rishabh Pant’s knock at Gabba can become a career-defining innings for him. He was given a promotion and would have been sent with a message to go and play the big shots and to along with the asking run rate,” he added.

Pant played with patience against Lyon: VVS Laxman

VVS Laxman marvels over Rishabh Pant’s maturity as the 23-year-old was cautious while playing against off-spinner, Nathan Lyon. Pant got a reprieve when Tim Paine missed a stumping, but he didn’t eschew from playing his shots. Not only Pant won the game, consequently the series, at the Gabba, he also returned as the leading run-scorer for India.

Laxman talks about Pant not only setting up the match for India, like in Sydney with his 97 before getting out but in Brisbane, he remained till the end to see of the run chase. Though Wriddhiman Saha may take the gloves in the upcoming home series against England, Pant has made enough case to be played purely as a batsman, and also make a return to the limited-overs side.

“He went in and batted with maturity, the hurry was not at all seen. The way Nathan Lyon was bowling outside the off-stump and forcing him to play a false shot but he played with patience and whenever he got a chance, he took advantage of that. He played high percentage shots and the good thing is that we generally talk that a young player should win the match and not only make a match, and he did that,” the former India batsman added.

It will surely be interesting to see if the Indian team management will be keen on including Rishabh Pant in the limited-overs setup after his blistering performance against Australia in the Border-Gavaskar trophy.

Also Read: We Will Be Also-rans In No Time: Greg Chappell Takes Dig At Australia After Loss To India