Former Indian national cricket team wicketkeeper-batsman Saba Karim was quite disappointed with the dismissal of stand-in captain Rishabh Pant in the second Test against the South Africa national cricket team.
Saba Karim said that being the captain of the team, Rishabh Pant should have taken some responsibility, but instead he got out by playing fast shots at the wrong time.
Rishabh Pant is once again under question regarding shot selection.
Pant is serving as the acting captain of Team India in the ongoing Guwahati Test against world Test champions South Africa. He was given the captaincy after Shubman Gill was ruled out of the match due to a neck injury.
Rishabh Pant’s Test captaincy career got off to a bad start as the bowling rotation did not work at all and the Proteas scored a mammoth score of 489 runs in the first innings and India were bowled out for 201 runs in reply.
There were a lot of expectations from Rishabh Pant, but he failed miserably and was out after scoring 7 runs on 8 balls. On the second ball of the 38th over, Rishabh Pant suddenly came down the track to hit a short length ball from Marco Jensen for a four.
However, Pant was unable to make any good connection with the ball and only managed to take it back to keeper Verein.
Perhaps for the first time in his Test career, Rishabh Pant will not be able to explain this – Saba
Saba Karim became very angry after seeing the way Rishabh Pant was out. He said there could be no explanation as to why Pant played such a shot and reprimanded him, saying he should have taken some responsibility being a senior professional in the playing eleven.
“You can’t make any sense of it. How do you explain it? It’s very difficult. Probably for the first time in his Test career, Rishabh Pant won’t be able to explain it.”
“It happened immediately after tea. You are the captain of the team, you have to shoulder some responsibility. You have enough experience of playing at that level. So, you lead by example. You lead by taking pressure and taking hits,” Saba Karim said on ESPN Cricinfo.
All that was missing from Rishabh Pant’s approach – Saba Karim
Saba Karim backed Rishabh Pant to play his natural cricket but urged him to be more responsible in the middle-order. The former Indian gloveman feels that Pant’s poor shot selection has set India back significantly in the match and they are unlikely to recover from it.
“All that was missing in Rishabh Pant’s approach. I can understand that you have to play your natural game, but you can do that by spending some time at the crease.”
“Playing such high-risk shots at that stage of the game drives your entire team into a corner. Now, India have found themselves in such a difficult position. It will be very difficult for them to get out of it,” Karim said.
Also read: Parthiv Patel, Aakash Chopra give shocking verdict on Rishabh Pant’s careless batting against South Africa
