It’s Rishab Pant vs KL Rahul again as India take on West Indies in ODIs

While Pant’s exploits in the final T20 match may have earned him plaudits from several quarters, he may still not have done enough to seal the contentious No.4 slot when the three-match ODI series begins on Thursday. The Roorkee lad, after all, had held this position during India’s march into the World Cup semifinal in England. Despite walking out under fairly challenging conditions, he had registered consistent performances, even though it did not quite translate into commanding victories.

Read | Rishabh Pant is our future and we need to give him space: Virat Kohli

Ahead of the ODI series in the Caribbean, it’s Shikhar Dhawan’s return that gives the team management plenty to ponder about. Dhawan, who missed bulk of India’s World Cup campaign after sustaining a finger injury, is poised to return to the 50-over format with his incumbent opener Rohit Sharma.

KL Rahul

With captain Virat Kohli following them at No.3, KL Rahul could just nudge Pant for a spot at No.4. Considering the sluggish nature of the Providence deck, Kedar Jadhav, with his unconventional off-spinners could just bolster the case for his return.

In such a scenario, Jadhav, all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja and Pant could jostle for spots in the lower middle-order. In essence, that would confine Shreyas Iyer and Manish Pandey, two batsmen who were jettisoned into the limited-overs squad for this tour, to warming the bench. Pandey was fairly disappointing in this T20 series, registering abysmal scores of 19, 6 and 2*. These lacklustre performances could just tempt the team management to test Iyer as a floater in the middle-order. The Mumbaikar was untested in the T20 series, and is coming after a fairly profitable run in the recently concluded limited-overs series against West Indies A.

Read | I kept following my process and it fetched the desired results: Rishabh Pant

It should not hurt Pant if he misses out to KL Rahul for a spot at No.4 in the batting order. If anything, he has done his bit to enhance his reputation following his uncharacteristic knock against West Indies on Tuesday evening.

The most refreshing aspect was that it was a well-paced innings, considering it was a T20 format. When he walked out, India had lost both their openers and were in strife at 27/2. With the captain by his side, he had stitched a match-winning third-wicket alliance of 106 runs that turned the tide in India’s favour.

“He (Pant) played with the tempo of the innings, the tempo of what was required. I am really looking forward to seeing more performances from him like this. He has got the tremendous talent we all know. It is all about getting into his zone and doing this more often for the team,” was Kohli’s assessment of Pant.

A timely knock

This was a much-needed score for Pant who scored 0 and 4 in the first two T20 games. However, the twin failures at Lauderhill did not bog Pant down. It gave him time to introspect. “There are times I get frustrated when I don’t get runs. Then I think of what I could have done differently so that I could perform. There are times when I take the right decision and even then I am not able to perform. It happens in cricket and is part and parcel of the game. But what I try to do always is to focus on my basics, trust my instincts and just follow the process,” Pant said in an interview to BCCI.TV.

In many ways, Pant’s match-winning knock in Guyana was a bit like Dhoni passing on the baton. For long, India has struggled to find a suitable replacement for the irrepressible 38-year-old in the shorter formats. This knock only reaffirmed the unmitigated trust Kohli has on the youngster. Appointing him the wicket-keeper across formats for this Caribbean sojourn gives Pant a sense of assurance that emboldens him to improve his game and not get bogged down after a couple of failures. “I do feel the pressure at times, but the senior members have faith in me and that is a huge confidence booster. You know that even if you fail in one or two innings, the team will back you. That really helps,” he added.

This article appeared in the print edition with the headline ‘Rishab Pant vs KL Rahul, the sequel’