Former India captain-turned-commentator Sunil Gavaskar announced that the Indian men’s cricket team have found their wicket-keeper batter, between Rishabh Pant and Sanju Samson, after their 60-run win against Bangladesh in their only 2024 T20 World Cup warm-up game at the Nassau County International Cricket Stadium in New York on Saturday.
Team India captain Rohit Sharma opened the innings with Samson as Pant walked out to bat at number 3 as Virat Kohli missed out having joined the team late.
Samson who had a fine run in the Indian Premier League (IPL) for Rajasthan Royals, came in as opener ahead of Yashasvi Jaiswal along, was trapped in front of the wicket for a 6-ball 1 by left-arm pacer Shoriful Islam as he struggled to come to terms with the nature of the track.
Pant, on the other hand, top-scored for India as he got himself retired out after making 53 runs off 32 balls.
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“Yes, I think simply because if you compare the wicketkeeping abilities then Rishabh Pant is a better wicketkeeper than Samson. We’re not talking about batting here, the batting aspect also comes into play. But, Rishabh Pant in the last few matches has batted really well. On the other hand, Sanju Samson started the IPL season superbly, scored runs at will, hitting the ball to all corners of the ground,” Gavaskar was quoted as saying to Star Sports.
“In the last two-three matches, he didn’t quite get runs. So this was an opportunity for him actually the match against Bangladesh. If he had scored about 50-60 then there would have been no question but I do feel that the Indian selection committee will look at having Rishabh Pant as the keeper,” he added.
Rohit Sharma, after the match, opened up on the decision to go with Pant batting at 3.
“Just to give him an opportunity. We haven’t nailed the batting line-up yet, we wanted most guys to get a hit in the middle,” he said.
(With inputs from Agencies)
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