Pant may play in T20 World Cup semi-final against England, Dravid hints
Rishabh Pant’s disappointing performance against Zimbabwe is not a cause for concern for head coach Rahul Dravid and hinted that the left-handed batsman may get a chance in Thursday’s T20 World Cup semi-final against England. Pant was not given a chance in the first four matches, in which Dinesh Karthik was dropped who is probably playing his last tournament. Karthik is playing the role of ‘finisher’ in this tournament. Karthik could not walk on the bowlers friendly pitches of Australia, due to which Pant was given a chance.
“I don’t think we should judge a player on a one-match basis,” Dravid said after the 71-run win against Zimbabwe. Whether we feed them or not is not based on the performance of a match.” Pant contributed only three runs in the match against Zimbabwe. Dravid gave enough indications that the decision to field Pant will not be taken for certain reasons as he sees it possibly as a ‘match-up’ to spinner Adil Rashid by taking him into the semi-finals. Dravid said, “Many times this is done keeping the match-up in mind. We need to see what kind of skill we will need against a particular bowler. So there are many things involved in such decisions.,
He reiterated that the team management had never lost faith in Pant. Dravid said, “It is not that we have ever lost faith in Pant. We have full faith in all the 15 players in the team but only 11 players can play and it depends on the combination. But trust a lot. This means that he can be included in the playing XI at any time.” The head coach said, “You can only play with 11 players in a match. In such a situation some players have to stay out. Rishabh is also one of them. He has batted a lot in the nets and he has practiced wicketkeeping a lot so that he is ready.
Dravid is happy with Pant’s approach against left-arm spinner Sean Williams even though he did not play his shot properly. “Obviously his attitude didn’t work today but I am not bothered about it because I think he made the right decision. His role was to dominate the left-arm spinner and he did. Sometimes you succeed in it, sometimes you fail.
“Some of the things we wanted to do included batting first when we got a chance. It was definitely necessary for us to win the toss. We had bowled here against Pakistan earlier but now we wanted to see how we defend the score in such conditions. “Also, we also felt that if we bat first, we will get a chance to play all the 20 overs,” he said.
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When Dravid was asked about Yuzvendra Chahal being given a chance at the Adelaide Oval, he said, “Like I said earlier, we have a clear opinion on all the 15 players. We believe that the presence of 15 players does not make us weak in any way. And the spinners played an important role in the match played between Pakistan. “We will go there and take a decision after seeing the circumstances,” he said. We saw there in today’s match (between Pakistan and Bangladesh on Sunday) that the pitch is playing a little slow and the ball is also taking turn.
