As the date for the announcement of Team India’s 2024 T20 World Cup squad gets closer, speculations are rife about the many names remaining in the final 15 competition. This year’s Indian Premier League is key for all the players in the competition and one of them is Rishabh Pant’s returning wicket-keeper batsman.
The Capitals of Delhi The captain returned to competitive cricket IPL This year in December 2022 after 14 months away from the game after a fatal car accident. However, despite the added pressure of captaining and keeping behind the wickets, Pant Has kept the rust off since his return to the sport and has scored two half-centuries in DC’s first six matches; His current run-tally stands at 194 runs at an impressive strike rate of 157.72.
Pant has been the highest run-scorer for the Capitals in the ongoing season so far and former England pacer Stuart Broad believes Pant should be India’s wicketkeeper-batsman when the team finally returns to action in the T20 World Cup in June.
While he had doubts about Pant’s fitness at the start of the season, Broad said that after seeing a particular shot from the batsman in the match against Kolkata Knight Riders, he disappeared.
“The selection of the Indian team is somewhat up in the air. There are some of your players left in that team. Perhaps there is a lot of discussion about Rishabh Pant. There was one shot I saw him play against KKR, a no-look flick for a six over deep square leg. The moment he played that shot, I thought he should be in that T20 World Cup team. He is ready. He’s good to go,” Brad said Star Sports.
Would like to see him as an impact player
Broad, however, stressed the need to manage Pant’s workload despite his solid performances. The former England pacer said DC could use Pant as a batsman in “a couple of matches”; In the previous season, Lucknow Supergiants used their captain KL Rahul as an impact player, while Nicholas Pooran led the side.
“He’s taken a huge amount, he’s been out of the game for such a long period. He’s a captain, he’s a wicketkeeper, he’s batting 3, 4, 5. He’s got a huge amount on his plate already. I’d like to see him be an impact sub in a couple of games, a little bit of workload on his shoulders. Take it,” Brad said.
“But as soon as he played that shot … it wasn’t decided, he saw the line and it went six. And I thought, that guy has to play. That says his match sharpness is already up to speed. He is a match winner, so if I was a selector, I think he would have been my wicket keeper in the World Cup squad.