Former India all-rounder Irfan Pathan has made a big statement by dropping Rishabh Pant from his India best eleven to start at the T20 World Cup, scheduled for October-November in Australia.
Pant hasn’t had the best of the times recently with the bat. In the IPL 2022, the Delhi Capitals skipper had scored 340 runs at an average of 30.90 and without a single half-century. But, his strike rate of 151.78 meant that his side was getting quick runs in the middle and Pant showed much more intent than he had in the two seasons before- when his strike rates were 113.95 in 2020 and 128.52 in 2021.
In the South Africa series, where he led the country for the first time, Pant started off well, blasting 29 runs off 16 balls, but after that could manage poor scores of: 5 off 7 bals, 6 off 8 and 17 off 23; in the fifth T20I, he got to face only one ball, scoring a single off it before the match was washed out.
On the other hand, the likes of Ishan Kishan – top-scorer in the series with 206 runs at strike rate of 150 – and Dinesh Karthik – Man of the Match in must-win Rajkot game and IPL 2022’s best finisher – have grabbed their chances spectacularly in this series.
Irfan Pathan leaves out Pant from his T20 World Cup XI
Pathan picked the favored and expected top three of Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul and Virat Kohli banking on their experience even though Kohli struggled in the IPL.
“In Australia you need powerful starts because the ball swings and seams a lot. So you need a player who has a lot of experience,” he said as the legendary all-rounder named KL Rahul, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli as top-order line-up,” Pathan said on Star Sports.
“Kohli may not have performed well so far but in Australia he has scored a lot of runs,” he said.
The commentator then picked the in-form Suryakumar Yadav, who has been arguably India’s best T20 batsman since making his debut last year, followed by the fire-power of Pandya, Karthik and all-rounder Jadeja, excluding Pant from the side.
Pathan’s bowling combination has one more spinner – Chahal – along with three pacers.
Here is Irfan Pathan’s India XI for 2022 T20 World Cup:
KL Rahul, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Dinesh Karthik, Ravindra Jadeja, Harshal Patel, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Jasprit Bumrah
