He Remains A Big Part Of Our Plans Going Ahead In The Next Few Months - Rahul Dravid On Rishabh Pant

Team India head coach Rahul Dravid came to the defence of wicket-keeper batter, Rishabh Pant, after a rather lackluster T20I series with the bat against the South Africans at home.

Pant scored a total of 57 runs in the four completed matches, getting a high score of 29. He averaged 14.5 and to make things worse, his best attribute – the strike rate, also took a dip and was at a lot 105.45. However, Dravid mentioned that expecting an attacking style of play does induce more mistakes and it was the case with Pant.

“When you’re asking people to play a slightly more attacking brand of cricket in the middle overs and to take the game on a little bit more, sometimes it’s hard to judge based on two or three games. I thought he had a pretty good IPL. He might not have looked good on the averages, but his strike rate was really good,” Dravid said after the 5th T20I against South Africa.

“He looked to move that up a little bit – to where he was probably three years ago. We’re going to hope that we can get those kinds of numbers from him at the international level as well. In that process, he might go wrong in a few games.”

“But he remains an integral part of our batting line-up. We know what he does with the power he has. The fact that he is a left-hander is very important to us as well in the middle overs. And he has played some good knocks. Of course, personally, he would have liked to have scored a few more runs but it’s not that concerning. For us, he is certainly a very big part of our plans going ahead in the next few months,” he added.

“We’re not going to make knee-jerk reactions” – Rahul Dravid

India has as many as 13 T20Is left before they play in the T20 World Cup. Each game will be important but Dravid insisted it is too early to start judging considering only one series has been played so far.

“We’re not going to make knee-jerk reactions. As you have seen, I don’t like judging people after one series, or one game. Every one of the guys who got the opportunity here truly deserved the opportunity; they have earned it. And in this format of the game, you’re going to have some good games and some bad games.”

“I think Shreyas, in the early part [of the series] on a couple of tricky wickets, showed a lot of intent and played really positively for us. Ruturaj showed in one particular innings [in the third T20I] what quality and skill he has got,” he also noted.

The series between South Africa and India ended 2-2 after the 5th T20I in Bengaluru was washed out on Sunday and the teams shared the trophy.

Also Read – Working With 6 Captains In 8 Months Wasn’t The Plan When I Started Out: India Head Coach Rahul Dravid