‘He is one for the future, no doubt about it’ – Sunil Gavaskar on Rishabh Pant as upcoming captain


‘He is one for the future, no doubt about it’ – Sunil Gavaskar on Rishabh Pant as upcoming captain

Sunil Gavaskar and Rishabh Pant

Former India cricketer Sunil Gavaskar opined that the current wicketkeeper-batsman Rishabh Pant is the prime candidate for leading the national side in the future. The youngster was recently handed over his first captaincy assignment for his franchise Delhi Capitals (DC) in IPL 2021.

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Pant did a phenomenal job as the Capitals held the pole position before the tournament was suspended. The Delhi-based franchise had registered six wins from eight matches under the southpaw’s captaincy.

The former opening batsman observed how Pant was getting tired of being asked similar captaincy-related questions at the end of every IPL 2021 match. However, he mentioned in his recent column for Sportstar that Pant did make a few mistakes like most of the new skippers. But Sunil Gavaskar asserted that the 23-year old is clever enough to learn from his mistakes and quickly get out of the ‘sticky’ situations

“The standout team Delhi Capitals under young Rishabh Pant. By the sixth game, one could see that he was getting tired of being asked about being captain. Every presenter at the post-game ceremony had the same question to him. What he showed was a spark that can become a roaring fire if allowed to burn naturally. Yes, he will make mistakes; which captain doesn’t?” Gavaskar wrote in his column for Sportstar.

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Gavaskar hailed Pant’s temperament 

Rishabh Pant
Rishabh Pant

The cricketer-turned-commentator mentioned that temperament is as crucial as talent in a budding cricketer. 

“But like he showed in the few games in the IPL that he is clever enough to learn and his usual street-smart savvy meant he was on top of most situations and was finding his own method to get out of sticky ones. He is one for the future, no doubt about it. That’s because he has shown that talent can meet opportunity only when it walks hand in hand with temperament,” he added.

Apart from Gavaskar, many former cricketers and experts have hailed Rishabh Pant’s maturity in the past few months. The youngster witnessed a 360-degree turnaround in his performance ever since the historic Test series victory against Australia.

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