The Indian Cricket Team is currently at its peak, dominating in all formats of the sport in the past couple of years. Besides being highly dominant on their home ground, India have also produced some brilliant performances overseas that include whitewashing Australia in the T20 series that was played in January last year.
The likes of MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli, Ravichandran Ashwin and Rohit Sharma in addition to newcomers KL Rahul, Karun Nair Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya have made the team look nearly invincible. Besides the regular players, there have been numerous talented youngsters who have impressed immensely at the domestic circuit and are expected to become star players for the Indian Cricket Team in the upcoming years.
U-19 World Cup and career breakthrough
One of them is 19-year old wicket-keeper batsman Rishabh Pant who has been named in the Indian T20 squad to face England later this month. Pant first came under the spotlight during the ICC U-19 World Cup in Bangladesh last year when he struck a half-century from just 18 deliveries against Nepal which is the fastest fifty in U-19 level.
The left-hander followed this with a majestic knock of 111 against Namibia in the quarter-finals which incidentally came on the same day when he was bought by IPL franchise Delhi Daredevils for a sum of Rs. 1.9 crores.
Pant played 10 matches for the Daredevils in the IPL – notching up 198 runs at an average of 24.75 and at a strike rate of 130.26. This included a 40-ball knock of 69 against the Gujarat Lions which fetched him the Man of the Match award.
Dominant form during the 2016-17 Ranji Trophy and call-up to the national team
However, the best of Pant was seen during the Ranji Trophy where he was in stupendous form for Delhi. Even though Delhi narrowly failed to reach the quarter-finals, Pant was their highest run scorer and the fourth highest run scorer of the competition with 972 runs in 12 innings at an impressive average of 81 and a mind-boggling strike rate of 107.28 which was the highest for any batsman who played at least 10 innings throughout the tournament.
Pant’s best performance of the tournament came during Delhi’s second group game against Maharashtra where he scored a brilliant 308 off just 326 deliveries, thus becoming the fourth-youngest batsman to score a triple-century in first-class cricket.
His majestic form continued when Delhi clashed against Jharkhand. Pant scored the fastest century in Ranji Trophy history from just 48 deliveries which is 21 balls less than the previous record which was held by Naman Ojha.
Pant’s exploits in the Ranji Trophy earned him a place in the Indian Team that will take on England in three T20s beginning from the end of January. Pant was also selected in the India A side that would take on England in two warm-up matches prior to the ODI series.
The southpaw played in the second match where he scored a 36-ball 59 that included eight boundaries and two sixes. Given the kind of form Pant has been in lately, he will be expected to open the innings alongside KL Rahul during the T20 series
Why it is unfair to expect so much from Pant so soon
Rishabh Pant’s recent exploits with the bat in the domestic circuit have already led to people calling him one of the future stars of Indian cricket. While there is no doubt regarding his talent, there is plenty of difference in smashing centuries in domestic cricket and doing the same at the international level.
In the domestic circuit, you play on the same subcontinental track time and again whereas, in the international arena, you are constantly tested in different conditions by players from different nations.
There have been numerous players who excelled immensely in the domestic circuit but could not replicate their domestic form with the national team. A few such instances are Vinod Kambli and Vikram Rathour. Kambli performed brilliantly while playing for Mumbai in the domestic circuit as he garnered a total of 9965 runs in First-Class cricket at an average of 59.67.
When called up to the national team, Kambli did play 17 Tests and 104 ODIs but he could not maintain the consistency (with disciplinary issues abound) he used to maintain while playing domestic cricket and soon disappeared from the international scene in 2000, aged only 28.
Similarly, Vikram Rathour used to be a prolific run-scorer at the Ranji Trophy level, scoring a total of 11,473 runs while playing for Punjab and Himachal Pradesh at an average of 49.66 which led to a call to the national side in 1996.
However, Rathour fared miserably with the national team, scoring only 131 runs in 10 Test innings at an average of 13.10 and scoring 193 runs in seven ODI innings at an average of 27.57. He was dropped from the national side in 1997 and never played for India ever again.
Rishabh Pant has the attributes of both a wicket-keeper and an opening batsman and given the fact that MS Dhoni could hang up his boots soon and Shikhar Dhawan’s poor form with the bat, he might be their ideal replacement someday but it’s a little too early to start comparing him to former top players and say that he could be one of the most feared batsmen in world cricket in the future as he is only 19.
It might pile up a lot of pressure on him which might lead to his career going in the same direction as the likes of Vinod Kambli, Vikram Rathour, or Sadagoppan Ramesh.
While there’s no denying that Pant is extremely talented, it is a little early to expect too much from him at this moment as he is only 19 and still has a lot of work to do in order to mature his game and cement his place in the national setup.
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