Rishabh Pant was about to face the anger of India’s head coach, Gautam Gambhir, after his poor dismissals in Melbourne. The wicketkeeper attempted to scoop Scott Boland in the first innings and got caught at third man when India was 191/5, still trailing by 263 runs.
In the second innings, with almost no chance of winning, Pant smashed a long hop from Travis Head straight to Mitchell Marsh at long-off. His dismissal caused a huge collapse, as India lost the next six wickets for just 34 runs in 20.3 overs.
Gambhir was unhappy with Pant’s performances in both situations. It was proposed that the wicketkeeper could be left out for the India vs Australia 5th Test and replaced by Dhruv Jurel, an idea that seems unreasonable.
Pant is India’s third-highest run-scorer in World Test Championship (WTC) history, only behind Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. However, Pant has not scored a half-century in this series, making several starts in the twenties and thirties but unable to turn them into a bigger score.
The wicket-keeper batsman faced a lot of criticism after throwing his wickets in the first and second innings when India was looking to draw the test match. The iconic Indian cricketer Sunil Gavaskar had called him “stupid”.
"Stupid, stupid, stupid!" 😡
🏏 Safe to say Sunny wasn't happy with Rishabh Pant after that shot.
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Jasir Basharat is a cricket enthusiast capturing the heart of the game through insightful analysis and storytelling sharing his passion for the sport through engaging narratives. He is a business graduate from University of Kashmir.
