India’s wicketkeeper–batsman Rishabh Pant, over the years, has become a regular across all the formats for the Indian cricket team. The last few months have been extraordinary for the young Indian keeper.
Besides his national duties, Rishabh Pant recently led Delhi Capitals in the now-suspended IPL 2021. He led the Delhi-based franchise in the absence of regular skipper Shreyas Iyer and won six-off the 8 games they played during the first half of the IPL 2021.
Rishabh Pant’s next international appearance will take place when the Indian cricket team will lock its horns against the Kane Williamson-led New Zealand next month.
However, ahead of the much-awaited tournament, Rishabh Pant’s childhood coach Tarak Sinha talked to Cricketnext.com and revealed an incident where Rishabh visited him in the middle of the night to apologize. He revealed:
“Once I got upset with him during one of the net sessions at my club Sonnet which is in South Delhi. He couldn’t sleep for the whole night and knocked on my door around 3:30 am! I live in Vaishali (National Capital Region) and which is almost an hour’s drive where he was staying in Delhi. I was like at this time? Why? He said that he wanted to apologise because he could never see me being upset. That was touching as well as disturbing since he had to make that journey post-midnight. In fact, my family was so upset with me that I was harsh on the kid.”
Further, in the interview, Sinha also opened up on whether Pant can be groomed to become the Indian skipper in the future, after seeing his leadership stint in the IPL 2021 for the DC camp. He said:
“It’s little too early to say that. Pant has to establish himself first more as a player. If you look at the iconic players like Dhoni and Virat Kohli, they had to do a lot before they got the captaincy. Similarly, Pant needs to grow as a player and then in future selectors can think about those things. He has done reasonably well for Delhi Capitals in IPL this year and has led Delhi Ranji team to final as well in the past. Not that he is intimidated by additional responsibility but as of now he is a kid and, still a long way to go before he can be seen as India captaincy material,”
Meanwhile, Rishabh Pant will be looking forward to leave a markw with his performance in the upcoming World Test Championship Final. The inauragral WTC will be Virat Kohli & Co.’s third attempt at an ICC title since 2017.
