Australia Series Opportunity For Rishabh Pant To Cement World Cup Spot: Harbhajan Singh

Harbhajan Singh has backed Rishabh Pant to capitalise on the opportunity in the upcoming series against Australia and seal his sport for the upcoming World Cup.

Rishabh Pant has not looked back since this year’s Indian Premier League. Pant ended this year’s IPL as the second highest run-getter with 684 runs from 14 games. It included five fifties and one century. He soon found a place in India A squad for the England tour where he impressed as well. It paved his way for Test call-up, and he made a big impression again by scoring a ton at the Oval.

Pant further enhanced his reputation with a stunning display in the Test series against Australia. The highly-rated youngster finished the series as the second highest-run scorer, amassing 350 runs including a record-breaking unbeaten ton in Sydney. Prior to the tour of Australia, he had also made his ODI debut at home during the series against Windies.

With Pant showing stunning form, it looked like his place in the World Cup was all but sealed. However, the selectors sensationally dropped him from the ODI squad for the series in Australia and New Zealand. The snub made many speculate that Pant’s World Cup chances are over. However, the selectors recently recalled him for the upcoming series against Australia and Harbhajan Singh has backed the wicketkeeper-batsman to seal his spot. He also said that recalled KL Rahul will also have the chance to seal his spot.

“This [India vs Australia series] is the opportunity for Rishabh Pant to cement his place in the World Cup squad and for KL Rahul, obviously this is the chance. If Rahul fails to get runs, then we should not be too surprised to see Pant as an opener and Dinesh Karthik could get a spot in the team in that case,” Harbhajan Singh told Aaj Tak.

India and Australia will play two Twenty20 Internationals and five one day internationals from February 24. The forthcoming series will be India’s last assignment before the World Cup which starts on May 30.