Give Rishabh Pant time, he will mature slowly, emphasises Sourav Ganguly

The newly appointed president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has voiced his support for young wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant. Ganguly strongly backed his position in the team even after he has failed to replicate his domestic form on the international stage.

While Pant has scored an underwhelming 352 runs in 20 innings in T20Is with an unimpressive strike rate of 119.72, his performance in the ODIs has been almost similar. Baring the batting, Pant hasn’t been up to the mark behind the stumps too. Ganguly advocated that Pant will mature with time.

“He’s a superb player. Give Rishabh Pant time, he will be fine,” the former India captain told PTI. “He will mature slowly, you have to give him time. India played really well last night.”

Pant had a night to forget at the Arun Jaitley Stadium, his home ground, where he scored almost a run a ball 27 and messed up DRS calls as India ended up with their maiden T20 loss to Bangladesh. 

The second T20 in Rajkot was an improvement for Pant as far as wicket-keeping was concerned. Although he had an embarrassing moment where he collected the balls before the stumps to stump Liton Das out, which ended up as a no-ball, Pant made up to it by inflicting his first stumping in T20Is and an excellent run out. Stand-in captain led the team by example as India raced to a thumping win to level the series. 

Pant doesn’t have much time with him as India will be playing only 10 T20Is leading up to the T20 World Cup 2020, baring the final T20 of the series on Sunday.

Ganguly further went to speak about the maiden day-night Test and shared that a galaxy of Indian stars will be felicitated at the Eden Gardens on the occasion of the historic match. The felicitation list will include the names of Sachin Tendulkar, Abhinav Bindra, Sania Mirza, P. V. Sindhu and M. C. Mary Kom among others.

“Everyone has confirmed. We will have a formal reception in the afternoon,” Ganguly said.