Former Indian off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin praised wicketkeeper-batsman Rishabh Pant’s fielding skills after the conclusion of the 2024-25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy. Pant endured an inconsistent series with the bat, scoring just 255 runs at an average of 28.33.
The left-hander, despite several solid starts, managed only to score a half-century in nine innings. However, Pant showed his versatility in the final Test in Sydney, hitting a 98-ball 40 and a 33-ball 61 in the first and second innings respectively on an extremely challenging batting wicket.
Ashwin praised Pant’s fielding skills on his YouTube channel and felt that his first innings score of 40 in the second innings onslaught unfairly flew under the radar.
“We have to realize that Rishabh Pant rarely fields. He has one of the best fieldings in world cricket. Fielding has become a challenging side, and he has the best fielding with soft hands. I bowl to him. He didn’t get out, he didn’t get the edge, he didn’t get the LBW and I tried to tell him that he has the best fielding, he has to fight in Test cricket,” he said.
Ashwin added:
“I always grew up hearing that you fought. In Sydney, he played two different knocks in one match. He hit everywhere and scored 40. This is Rishabh Pant’s least talked about innings. He scored 50 points in the second inning and received praise from many people.
Ashwin played alongside Pant in the Indian team for several years and recently retired midway through the Australia series.
Pant, meanwhile, boasts impressive Test figures with nearly 3,000 runs at an average of over 42 in 43 outings.
“Rishabh Pant is yet to reach his full potential.” – Ravichandran Ashwin
Ravichandran Ashwin believes that Rishabh Pant is still reaching his full potential with the bat. He asked the wicketkeeper-batsman to try to find the ideal balance between defense and attack.
Despite some heroic efforts in the past, Pant came under heavy criticism for his untimely dismissal while playing a rash shot in the Australia series.
“If he needs to hit hard or make intentional at-bats, we need to make sure he knows what to do. He didn’t score a lot of runs, but he didn’t play like he didn’t score a lot. He got a lot of time. He got a lot of time.” Rishabh Pant is yet to reach his full potential. said Ashwin.
He concluded:
“He has all the shots – the reverse sweep, the slog sweep – but the problem is that all of these shots are high-risk shots. With his defense, if he faces 200 balls, he will definitely score every game. The point is to find. “If you add up all the games in between, you’ll get 100 points every game.”
Pant played a huge role in India’s back-to-back Test series wins in Australia in 2018/19 and 2020/21.
However, his sub-par performance in the recent series meant India suffered a 1-3 defeat to hand over the Border-Gavaskar Trophy to Australia.
Edited by Arshit Garg
