India vs West Indies: Chance for Rishabh Pant to improve mediocre T20I record

Without the presence of MS Dhoni in the camp, and with the selectors and management throwing their weight behind him, this is the chance for Rishabh Pant to step up and be counted

“He (Dhoni) is unavailable for the series. He has expressed his unavailability. Having said that we had a certain roadmap and plans till the World Cup. Post World Cup, we have laid down a few more plans and we thought of giving as many opportunities as possible to Rishabh Pant and to see he is groomed. That is our plan right now and we did discuss this with him (Dhoni),” chief selector MSK Prasad informed while picking the Indian squads for the West Indies series.

File image of Rishabh Pant (AFP)

Without the presence of MS Dhoni in the camp, and with the selectors and management throwing their weight behind him, this is the chance for Rishabh Pant to step up and be counted - not as a few-hit wonder, but as a solid option as a wicket-keeper batsman for India across all the three formats.

He has had a bumper start to his Test career, but the numbers are quite mediocre when it comes to T20Is and despite being a prolific run-scorer in the Indian Premier League, the young man has not been able to translate this form to International T20s. Now when he is the primary wicket-keeper and one of the key components of the batting order, the moment is ripe for him to set the record straight.

So far, he has played15 T20Is for India and scored just 233 runs at a mediocre average of 19.41. There is a massive contrast when his IPL numbers are pitted against the T20I numbers. His strike rate tanks by around 26 per cent when his IPL and international numbers are concerned. Also, he takes 4.34 balls on average to find the boundary in the IPL and this soars to 7.22 balls in T20Is.

In the IPL, he has 12 scores of more than 50, but has managed to hit only a solitary 50 in T20Is.