Wicket-keeper batter Rishabh Pant is set to make his comeback to the Test team after being named in India’s 16-man squad for the first Test against Bangladesh.
Starting September 19, India will host Bangladesh for two Test matches in Chennai and Kanpur. This series is part of the ongoing World Test Championship 2023-25 cycle.
Pant last featured in a Test match in December 2022, the same month he was involved in a serious car accident. He made his comeback to IPL, T20Is, and ODIs earlier this year and now is looking primed to don the whites for India again.
Check Out: India squad for first Test vs Bangladesh
Pant Credits Ravi Shastri for His Test Success: Rishabh Pant
Pant, the only India wicketkeeper to have hammered a Test century in England, Australia, and South Africa, has credited former head coach Ravi Shastri for giving him the freedom he needed as a Test cricketer in his return to the side on the 2020/21 tour of Australia.
India had started that tour with W Saha in the side, but after the first Test brought in Pant in the XI. He then played two iconic fourth-inning knocks in Sydney and Gabba and cemented his place in the Test XI.
Recently, Pant hailed the then coach Shastri for showing him the better direction to bat in the longest format, a style that suited his batting.
The left-hander said,
“It was an amazing relationship. I had a great understanding with Ravi Shastri, as he gave me the freedom I wanted. I don’t like it when someone tells me not to do a specific thing; instead, I prefer someone giving me a better option. I would rather switch to a better option than avoid anything.”
Since the MCG Test on the 2020/21 Australia trip, Pant averages 47 in Test cricket in 20 Tests, having scored his runs at a strike rate of 76. He’s cracked three centuries and nine fifties in this period.
Pant added,
“There was a time when I was getting out to off-spinners while playing shots against them. Ravi Bhai was thinking about what he should tell me, then he came to me and told me that we have to find a way to tackle off-spinners. He told me that he had found a way and said, ‘You should play reverse sweep against an off-spinner, and this was about Test cricket.’”
Pant made a case for his comeback for Bangladesh Tests with a breezy knock of 61 runs off 47 balls in the second innings in the Duleep Trophy 2024 fixture.
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