“Rishabh Pant Needs To Understand…”: Rohit Sharma’s Blunt Message After MCG Test Defeat

Indian cricket team captain Rohit Sharma said that Rishabh Pant needs to understand what is required from himself after their side’s crushing defeat against Australia in the fourth Test encounter in Melbourne on Monday. Pant scored 30 off 104 balls in the second innings and the left-hander stitched together a brilliant partnership with Yashasvi Jaiswal that almost guided India to safety. However, he was dismissed after playing a rash shot and that opened the floodgates as the visitors kept losing wickets at regular intervals. Rohit said that Pant needs to assess the risk percentage and play accordingly.

“Obviously he needs to understand what is required from himself. More than any of us telling him, it’s about him understanding and figuring out what’s the right way to go about it. In the past, he has given us a lot of success doing what he does. As a captain, there’s a kind of mixed reaction to that.”

“Sometimes you want to back that thought of him playing the way he plays, sometimes when things don’t look good, it frustrates everyone. That is what it is, that’s the reality. It’s the success and failure – need to be balanced about it. As captain, it’s hard to have a conversation when it has given him a lot of success as well. But it’s about him figuring out what is the right way to do things, it’s about situations as well. Certain situations of the game, if there’s a risk percentage, do you want to take that risk? Do you want to let the opposition come back into the game? Those are the things he needs to figure out himself.”

Though Rohit said that the has had conversations with Pant over his batting style in the past, the skipper also highlighted that the fact that the same style of play has given the wicket-keeper batter plenty of success in the past.

“I’ve known Rishabh for a long time, understand his cricket as well… In terms of conversations, no way I can say I’ve not had a chat with him or he doesn’t understand what the term expects. He understands that. But things that he does give him results as well, just the fine line between telling him not to do those things or telling him to do those things,” Rohit said at the post-match press conference.