Former Indian cricketer Gautam Gambhir believes that comparing Rishabh Pant with former Indian skipper MS Dhoni is just adding unnecessary pressure on him. Pant has the ability to hit huge sixes and that is why he has been compared with the 39-year-old. However, the years 2019 and 2020 have not been that great for Rishabh Pant and Gambhir believes that he needs to improve a lot,
Gambhir thus has requested the media to stop comparing Pant with MS Dhoni and has stated that there can never be anyone like him again. He is of the opinion that Rishabh Pant needs to concentrate on his own game and not take excessive pressure of trying to fill the shoes of MS Dhoni.
“First of all, you have to stop saying that Rishabh Pant is the next MS Dhoni. That is one thing that the media needs to stop doing it. The more media talks about it, the more Rishabh Pant starts thinking about those chances. He can never be MS Dhoni. He has to be Rishabh Pant,” Gautam Gambhir told ESPNCricinfo.
Only because Rishabh Pant could hit big sixes, people started comparing him to MS Dhoni: Gautam Gambhir
Gautam Gambhir stated that although both Rishabh Pant and MS Dhoni have great six-hitting ability, the 21-year-old needs to work on his batting as well as wicketkeeping. MS Dhoni had a great range when it came to six-hitting and Pant doesn’t have that range. Thus Gambhir believes that there is a long way for Pant to go to become as good a wicket-keeper batsman as MS Dhoni
“MS Dhoni probably had so much of range when he came on to international sixes. With Rishabh Pant, only because he could hit those big sixes and stuff, people started comparing him with someone like MS Dhoni. Rishabh Pant has a lot to improve, especially from the keeping point of views and from the batting point of view as well.”
Rishabh Pant has only scored 285 runs at an astonishingly poor strike rate of 109 and Gambhir believes this needs to change as quickly as possible
