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Rishabh Pant has arrived with an aura like few starlets in international cricket. The swashbuckling southpaw attracted many to his splendid approach towards the shorter formats of the game.

Touted to be an immensely capable successor of MS Dhoni, Pant captured the imaginations of the fans of the game who were bothered by India’s rather pragmatic outlook towards T20 internationals. He provided an outlook that was fresh, captivating and rather unheard of in the Indian cricketing circuit.

Three and a half years down the line from his debut in the shortest version of the sport for the nation, the 22-year-old finds himself dropped from the playing XI in a format over which he was perceived to have attained mastery in. Many blame the Indian team management for sidelining Pant from their scheme of things.

They believe that the think-tank does not grasp the incredible potential that the lad carries. It has been said that there have been attempts to curtail his intentions; for Pant to adopt a more safety-first viewpoint towards the game.

The notion was circulated that adjusting to a new method does not come naturally to the batsman and hence he finds himself stumbled in a spot of bother on every occasion he arrives to the crease.

Is the statement “Rishabh Pant hasn’t been backed enough” true?

So, almost 42 months after Rishabh Pant first donned the Indian jersey to represent the country in T20 internationals, the entire blame of his inability to optimize his own potential is summarized in a single sentence by the masses, “He is not being backed enough by the management.”

Is it really so, though? Does the wicketkeeper’s inadequacy in living up the expectations that he entered the international stage result from the presence of an incomprehensible set of men who make the calls for the team? Perhaps, the fickle record of the current team management leads people to believe that they must be culpable for the occurrences that have transpired with Rishabh Pant in T20Is.

Surely they have made certain huge errors in the past, for which the Indian team has paid the price in major tournaments. However, they cannot be accused of not providing Rishabh Pant with enough chances and opportunities in T20Is.

Regardless of all their mistakes in the past, they persisted with Pant for a stretch of time that is hardly ever afforded to a newbie. One can rightfully argue that the Delhi Capitals’ player deserves to be supported by the management. However, the captain deserves to see tangible returns for his patience, otherwise the whole approach falls into an area of favoritism over legitimate patronage.

Before we delve further into the topic, it is necessary to note that the Indian team as a matter of facts plays few T20Is over the course of a calendar year. Much of it is due to the fact that one-off matches without a World Cup of the same to look forward to hardly carry any substantial significance.

The national team competed in their first ever T20I in December 2006. Almost 14 years since that day, they have played in only 134 international T20 encounters that include games from six World Cups too. It comes down to only 9.57 T20Is per 12 months and hence it is difficult for any player to rack up a significant number of appearances in this version of the sport.

Despite the existence of such circumstances, it must be noted that Rishabh Pant has been a part of 28 T20Is ever since his debut on February 1, 2017. It is not that he has been deprived of opportunities to bat extensively in these matches either. The player has wielded the willow in 25 innings of the 28 encounters that he has played in.

Of course, a question might arise whether 28 games form a substantial sample space to assess a particular player. It isn’t a lot of games, surely. However, the mere fact that a 22-year-old Rishabh Pant has been a participant in 20.89% of all T20Is that the Indian team has played is simply not something to be shrugged off as per one’s whims and fancy.

Secondly, as aforementioned, not every player attains an opportunity to don the Indian cap for such number of matches in T20 internationals. It is largely because of two factors, i.e. lesser frequency of these games coupled with the rather irrelevance of bilateral series’ that often mark the commencement of a challenging tour or the conclusion of the same.

During such matches, every management rather looks to constantly experiment with new players rather than play their strongest XI on the field. So far, 82 cricketers have represented in T20Is in the last 14 years. Including Pant, only 21.95% of these players have gone on to play more than 25 T20Is for India.

Other than the southpaw, the other cricketers are: MS Dhoni, Harbhajan Singh, Dinesh Karthik, Suresh Raina, Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh, Rohit Sharma, Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Virat Kohli, Shikhar Dhawan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Manish Pandey, Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya, Yuzvendra Chahal and KL Rahul.

In fact, 10 of these players had debuted before 2011 and a sheer glance through these names indicates that Rishabh Pant is a part of a list that includes some of the most prominent names that India has produced in limited overs cricket. Furthermore, after earning his first India cap in T20Is in early 2017, Pant has still managed to make it to the playing XI in almost 52.83% of the matches that the team has played in the shortest format of the game ever since.

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That is, he has played 28 of the 54 T20Is that the Indian team has contested since his debut. If one pushes the time frame being taken into consideration a bit ahead, then the fact appears that the left-handed batsman has played a sizable 68.42% of encounters since the conclusion of World Cup 2019. It displays that Pant has gradually been inducted into the core set of players as his nascent career has progressed over time.

Furthermore, the Indian team has handed debuts to 14 players after Pant’s first T20I game. None of those have even rather come close to the number of appearances that the wicketkeeper-batsman has managed to register. The closest is Washington Sundar, who has turned up 23 times for the national team whereas the likes of Shreyas Iyer and Kuldeep Yadav have been capped 22 and 21 times respectively.

But, Rishabh Pant is undoubtedly a special limited-overs batsman. So, he must not be compared with debutants who made their first forays in the national team after him. Rather, one should be taking a perspective that includes all the prominent first-teamers including the skipper and his deputy. So, the only players to have played more T20Is for India ever since Rishabh Pant’s debut in February 2017 are Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Shikhar Dhawan, Manish Pandey, KL Rahul and Yuzvendra Chahal. Rohit and Virat have led the team on numerous occasions in this time period. Dhawan is a part of an unshakeable top-order trio that only KL Rahul has managed to breach and break into very recently. Pandey has been persisted and rewarded for his impactful outings, explained over here. On the other hand, Chahal is undoubtedly the lead spinner of the lineup.

Now, consider the number of players that Pant has surpassed to make those many appearances: MS Dhoni, Dinesh Karthik, Ravindra Jadeja, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah. Whether he has crossed over these players due to their sabbatical, injuries or sidelining from the first team, it is still noteworthy that a player so young has managed to transcend the count of outings of these first-teamers since his debut.

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Pant’s appearances compared to players of other nations

Now, we will widen the scope to international cricket and examine the players from the other top-nine ranked T20I teams (barring India) who made played their first international T20 match after Rishabh Pant’s debut. In total, 118 debutants across nine nations have plied their trade in the format since February 1^st, 2017. West Indies have capped the most number of new entrants (18), whereas Afghanistan are at the bottom of the list (7).

Out of these 118 individuals, only Fakhar Zaman and Shadab Khan from Pakistan have played more T20Is than Pant over the course of last three and a half years. Otherwise, Alex Carey equals the Indian player’s tally of 28 T20Is. On an average, these players have been conferred with 7.56 matches since their debut before being shunted out or being permanently included in the scheme of things.

If one again shifts back to witness the whole scenario from India’s perspective, the team has provided opportunities to represent the country internationally to 15 players including our player in consideration since his debut. These cricketers have been handed 13.40 games on an average so far, and plenty of them continue to circumspect around the main squad as of now.

This puts forth two inferences. Firstly, the Indian team hasn’t been as detrimental for newer entrants as it is made out to be. Secondly, Rishabh Pant has been provided with more than two times the average number of games that the Indian team otherwise gives to a debutant. Internationally, he has been backed with almost four times the count of matches that the other times combined on an average trust a newly capped player with. And yet, his performances have led him to be on the fringes; neither an outcast, not a sure starter.

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Rishabh Pant has been given the chances. Has he repayed the faith yet?

How has he fared with the bat, though? 25 innings is a fairly good framework to build one’s assessment on, especially if that player in new to the rigors of international cricket and does not have a credible past record against teams of similar calibre belonging to the same level. To be fair, Pant has been given rather ample chances in all significant middle-order positions that can optimize his skillset. Pant has played five innings at number three, 12 of them at two-drop and seven at number five. He batted at number six in only his first T20I match.

He averages the best from batting at number three i.e. 22.50. However, he strikes the runs quickest at number four, which is 130.57. Neither of these two values deserves to be at the highest spot in these critical parameters especially for a player as prodigious as Pant himself. But, they are, and that has been the arguably unfortunate reality of this player’s international stint in T20 cricket so far.

In 13 out of his 25 innings so far, Rishabh Pant has been dismissed for a single-digit score. That is 52% of the times that he has stepped out to bat in T20Is. Recently, a listicle was done about the five batsmen who have been dismissed on a single-digit score for the most number of times in T20 internationals. William Porterfield was placed fifth in the article, and he has been sent back to the pavilion on 40.98% of his total innings with such a miniscule score.

On the other hand, Rohit Sharma who tops this tally has been dismissed 34% of times on a single-digit score. Arguably, Pant doesn’t seem to be faring well if this approach continues. There is only so long so one can ignore poor decision-making and inability to stitch together a substantial knock in the name of raw talent, zealously offensive attitude and the player being a ‘quintessential T20 batsman’.

However, Rohit’s case is a fine example of the fact that despite having a significant number of inconsequential knocks to one’s name, the batsman can overshadow them by making the best of their good days. Pant’s shortcomings on more than half of his outings in T20Is can be overlooked if he piles up runs aplenty at a laudable scoring rate at times when he has managed to get in the groove.

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The 22-year-old has scored two half-centuries, the most by an Indian wicketkeeper-batsman in T20Is. Both those knocks were while chasing a target against the West Indies at tricky tracks in Chepauk in Chennai and the Providence Stadium in Guyana. In addition to this, he played an unbeaten innings of 40 runs in 28 deliveries against New Zealand at Eden Park in Auckland to level the three-match series 1-1 in 2019.

Another slightly impactful innings by Pant was at Hyderabad against West Indies in December last year. He scored 18 runs off nine deliveries after arriving at the crease at a situation when the Indian team required 78 runs off 6.3 overs. It is appreciable that the former ICC Emerging Player of the Year kept up with the required rate but at the same time it can be argued that he could have continued on to see through the innings rather than succumbing at the start of the 17^th over itself.

On the other hand, there have been several instances when Rishabh Pant has been unable to keep up with the scoring rate at which his team has proceeded in that innings. For example, one can look at one of his earlier T20Is from 2017 in Kingston against West Indies when Pant played a knock of 38 runs in 35 deliveries after coming out to bat at number three. The Indian team scored 190 runs in that match whilst batting first.

There was also a match against Sri Lanka in the Nidahas Trophy when Pant had arrived to bat at 104/3 in 12.4 overs with a well-set Shikhar Dhawan at the other end. For some reason, the lad couldn’t get going throughout the entirety of the last 7.2 overs. Pant played an innings of 23 runs from 23 deliveries, and couldn’t capitalize on the momentum that was easily prevalent at the time when he had come to bat.

In the first T20I of the three-match series against Australia at Brisbane in November 2018, a similar pattern ensued. The Indian team required 75 runs from 37 deliveries at the time of Pant’s entrance to the crease. With the required run rate of 12.29, it seemed to be just about the perfect situation for a player like him to apply his attacking instincts into the proceedings. Instead, the batsman scored 20 runs from 16 deliveries and departed with the side still needing 18 runs from 9 balls.

In the first T20I against Bangladesh last year, the left-handed batsman was sent out to bat at the fall of the third wicket. With the 11^th over just having started, and the team scoring at 6.86 runs, he had a significant 10 overs to make use of and thereby pace the inning to shoot up the projected score by holding an end up until the 20^th over. Instead, Pant notched 27 runs from 26 deliveries as the team added up runs at a scoring rate of 6.25 during the time that he stayed on the crease. Only a couple of wickets fell during that eight-over spell of Pant’s stay on the crease and yet there seemed to a difficulty in runs to come by through his willow.

Furthermore, this process was further more glaring in the third encounter of the series against South Africa in September last year. The team was scoring at 8.75 runs per over until the second over fell at the beginning of the eighth over and Pant walked in. He managed to stay at the crease for the next 5.2 overs. Within that, the batsman hustled his way to 19 runs in 20 deliveries. The team bagged 5.19 runs per over in those critical middle overs in which Pant remained at the crease. After his departure, the scoring rate again jumped up to 7.5 in each over.

Needless to say, the Indian team was defeated in each of the five instances that we have mentioned over here.

One of the patterns that can be witnessed is the player’s rather inability to keep up with the demands of the situation and modify his playing style to suit the same. There is a necessity to identify a sweet spot in the middle, wherein the player does not go overboard with his intentions and neither does he succumb into a shell either. Evidently, Rishabh Pant has fallen short in doing so.

How does Pant’s IPL career compare?

Comparing Pant’s first 25 T20I innings to his first 25 IPL innings throws up some curious facts. Firstly, the number of times that he was dismissed for a single-digit score remains almost the same over there too, i.e. 11. Secondly, his progressive average at that point in time was better at 25.73 in comparison to 20.50 as it is right now in international cricket. However, the most remarkable improvement could be seen in his strike rate in the IPL. In his first quarter of innings for the then-Delhi Daredevils, Rishabh Pant struck runs at a rate of 153.26. After the same number of batting opportunities in T20Is, Pant strikes runs at merely 121.66, which is a sharp decline of 31.6 from his IPL numbers.

Moreover, he had ten 30+ scores to his name in those many innings in the early stages of his IPL career. In international cricket, he has surpassed the 30-runs mark only on five occasions so far.

Additionally, as reiterated earlier, it needs to be taken into account that just his ducks or low scores aren’t an issue in T20Is anymore. The occasions, on which Pant has managed to get him a good start, it has somehow turned out to be in detriment to the team’s benefits and his batting approach has lagged behind the behest of the situation at that point in time. So barring the few encouraging performances as mentioned before, an overwhelming majority of his international T20 career has been strikingly substandard.

All this is after the enormous amount of backing as stressed upon statistically in beginning of this article.

For a player so incredibly praised for his instinctive ability to take on the best of bowlers at his sheer will, he averages a lowly 13.27 in the 13 innings in which he has come out to bat after the 10^th over of the match. Okay, the average might not matter to the modern-age statisticians, but his strike rate in such situations has been of only 114.06 too.

In fact, he has fared slightly better when the lad has been called onto action before the tenth over. In 12 such innings, Pant has an average of 25.4 at a rather indifferent strike rate of 121.53 for a player of his flair. If one further segregates Pant’s innings into different phases, some telling numbers appear.

He has proven out to be fairly more efficient in the six innings where he was required to bat in before the field restriction overs (0-6) concluded. He averages 34.6 with a strike rate of 126.57 whenever asked to bat in the first phase of the match. Both of Pant’s half-centuries have come when he arrived onto the crease before the end of the sixth over.

However, his other four outings barring these two haven’t really been one to gloat about. Three of them resulted in the player being dismissed in single-digit scores, which is quite unfortunate for any young player especially at a time when he has been provided with such an incredible opportunity to bat higher up in the T20I game.

These are the moments that one expects such individuals who create their mark in. The fourth innings of Pant from this lot is the one where he scored 38 runs from 35 deliveries when the team notched 190 against West Indies (a match that has been discussed earlier in this article). However, Pant’s average drops by nearly half to 18.87 when he is asked to bat after the powerplay in comparison to before the sixth over period. His strike rate falls down to 119.84 from 126.27 too.

However, it does post an intriguing question regarding whether he could succeed more prominently if allowed to bat higher up the batting order. In current circumstances with the likes of Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul and Virat Kohli deservingly occupying those critical spots, such a rearrangement seems highly unlikely.

Another reason attributed towards Rishabh Pant’s record in T20Is is that he has been lamented with a lot of criticism. However, with good comes the bad and it is rather redundant to reiterate the hype with which he arrived onto the international scene. There were calls from some quarters for him to replace MS Dhoni as a starter in ODIs in the World Cup 2019 itself. This is quite some praise for a player taking baby steps into the vast arena of international cricket.

Now, if one basks in the glory of such high praise during a good patch, it is a given that the backlash will be even more concrete when the player is unable to live up to those expectations.

Whether or not that individual manages to maintain an equilibrium state of mind during both such phases immensely determine the extent of success that the player eventually achieves in his career. For now, despite him undeniably being one of the best T20 batsmen across the world, one can definitely concur with the team management’s decision to explore other alternatives if possible.

They have persisted quite a lot, and the man may have to wait in the queue for the time being.

Written by Tarkesh Jha. Follow Tarkesh on Twitter today.

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