Recurring questions are a very vital part and parcel of our lives. Chai or Coffee? Winter or Summer? Maggi or Pasta? DC or Marvel? We can keep going on. Sports in particular, thrives on this, and especially in our most beloved sport Cricket. We’ve had and made so many comparisons in the past and even now in Cricket such as, Kohli or Tendulkar, Dhoni or Ponting, Warne or Murali etc. In recent times however, two new names have entered the scene, the likes of Dinesh Karthik & Rishabh Pant.
Dinesh Karthik and Rishabh Pant are two extremely talented and prolific cricketers who have made their mark in the Indian cricket space. Karthik’s match winning heroics and Pant’s fearless batting prowess have repeatedly made the headlines. No one can forget Karthik’s last over at the Nidhas trophy and Pant’s glorious knocks at the Gabba, leading us to a historic win. The recent T20 World Cup has created a lot of buzz around these two players as both are wicket-keeper batsmen and both extremely talented. While Karthik is going strong at 37 years, knocking balls out the park, the latter is a destructive batsman who has proven his caliber and versatility by consistent performances and his own cheeky approach to the game.
However, Karthik hasn’t been his usual best and the regular deployment of the former into the main team has led to a lot of questions as to why the management isn’t playing Pant. Many cricketing greats such as Adam Gilchrist, Sunil Gavaskar, Harbhajan Singh, and even Ian Chappell have had their say at this matter. With a lot of the cricketing fraternity and fans having their opinions to back either of the two and rightfully so, I’d like to pen my opinion at this matter and support my argument with three reasons. I back Pant and would like him to be played with in this squad looking at the way the scenarios for the team are panning out at the instant.
When on the ground, Rishabh Pant regularly generates a lot of excitement. His unorthodox antics to play the game constantly confound cricket experts. When it comes to the longest form of the game, he has already made a mark for himself. The question, ironically arises, when we talk about the shortest format of the game and his place in the team. When you’ve had a wicketkeeper like Dhoni, its naturally very hard to find a suitable replacement. The likes of Pant, Saha, Samson, Karthik and even KL Rahul have been tried. This spot seems like the one that’s all for the taking. However, the reason Pant has been entrusted a lot was due to his red ball heroics. There was something about playing in a fearless manner at a rather slow and gradually progressive format.
REASONS TO BACK PANT –
- Rishabh Pant is a left hander. This is a huge advantage in our cricket team as being a left hander in a predominantly right-handed team, we can slot him anywhere in the team, enabling him to perform as a floater. Due to this, the bowlers must keep varying their lengths and change their field set ups. This will be a hindrance to any steady tactics which the opponent would be more likely to set up. A left-right combination always proves to be deadly, especially in a strong batting team set up like ours.
- Pant plays the spin way better than that of Karthik who’s primarily a pace hitter. He scored 185 runs against spin at a strike rate of 165.17 at the latest edition of the IPL. This is highly commendable when considering pitches that turn and teams that would look to exploit that factor.
- There is absolutely no restriction in Pant’s entry point in the team. DK’s entry point is fixed. When Karthik comes up to bat after the 14th over is when the game gets interesting, and he dictates the terms of the play. Coming to Pant, there is no restriction on his entry point. He can come into bat at any time of the innings and has a better runs building capability than that of Karthik, who’s more of a finisher of the game. We can compare the two using their IPL statistics since 2021.
RISHABH PANT’S PHASE-WISE ENTRY POINT STATISTICS
DINESH KARTHIK’S PHASE-WISE ENTRY POINT STATISTICS
From the aforementioned reasons, we can see that Pant is worth the chance for the spot in the team when compared to Karthik. A young talent with a lot of potential, shouldn’t be barred from his chances and should be tried for the upcoming games. Of course, we aren’t denying the player that Karthik is as he made his way back into the team purely due to his expendable batting and finishing abilities. However, that has stewed down, and its wiser to bet on our younger prospects who will clearly direct the way forward for our cricket team.
