Former India pacer Ashish Nehra was unimpressed with Rishabh Pant’s decision to not bowl Yuzvendra Chahal his quota of overs during the loss to South Africa in the first T20I in Delhi.
Rishabh Pant made a big mistake
Rassie van der Dussen and David Miller’s mammoth and aggressive partnership of 131* runs in 64 balls helped the visitors sail past the target of 212 with 7 wickets in hand and 5 balls remaining.
Making his India captaincy debut, Pant, who was elevated after KL Rahul was ruled out due to an injury, bowled Chahal only 2.1 overs in the game.
Chahal was taken for 16 runs in his first over, which he bowled in the powerplay, but came back strongly giving away just 6 runs in his second over. However, it was surprising to see Chahal not bowl again until the last over after the game was virtually decided.
Ashish Nehra Slams Rishabh’s Captaincy
Ashish Nehra opined that head coach Rahul Dravid could have sent in a message to Pant about bowling again Chahal.
“Rishabh Pant is a young captain, he will learn and hopefully he will get better. Now, if Dravid feels that Chahal should bowl an over, obviously a message can be sent. They have to keep things simple and be proactive,” Nehra told Cricbuzz.
“It is very surprising to me that a bowler like him only bowled 2 overs today. He should have bowled to the van der Dussen-Miller pair, especially at the stage when South Africa were back in the chase. Rishabh Pant surely made a mistake over there.”
Ashish slammed Pant for not utilizing Yuzvendra Chahal properly
Chahal is the Purple Cap holder in the recently-concluded IPL 2022 where he regularly bowled overs in high-pressure situations and came out with flying colours more often than not.
Nehra said that Pant perhaps didn’t want to bowl Chahal, the leg-spinner, to left-hander David Miller. However, the former seamer reckoned such “defensive” mindset needs to be washed away to take wickets of good batters in the middle.
“He only bowled 2 overs today. Sometimes teams hold back leg spinners because there is a left-hander batting. It is important to keep a wicket-taking option in the middle overs. If you have to stop a top-quality International batter, you will have to take his wicket, defensive bowling won’t work,” the Gujarat Titans head coach opined further.
