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It was a happy sight for Indian cricket fans on Tuesday evening at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru when Rishabh Pant was spotted in the nets before the third T20I match between the hosts and Afghanistan. He batted for 20 minutes before being joined by the members of the Indian squad. Pant, who continues to recover at the National Cricket Academy (NCA), has been tipped to make a return for Delhi Capitals in the 2024 Indian Premier League (IPL), with the likes of Sunil Gavaskar already backing the wicketkeeper-batter for a place in India’s T20 World Cup squad while India head coach Rahul Dravid eagerly awaits the IPL season to take a note of Pant’s progress. However, former India fast bowler Zaheer Khan feels that selectors are unlikely to favour Pant even if he makes a good IPL return.
Pant had incurred a tragic car accident in December 2023, which resulted in all three critical ligaments in his right knee getting torn. He later underwent three successful reconstructive surgeries and spent the better part of 2023 at the NCA rehabilitating.
The 26-year-old kept sharing updates on his fitness journey before videos on social media emerged of Pant having started his practice routines. In November 2023, he attended a DC camp in Kolkata and was later retained by the franchise for the 2024 season, with team director Sourav Ganguly confident of Pant’s return to action in the impending IPL season while another former India captain, Gavaskar, reckoned that the left-hander would be an automatic pick for the World Cup squad “even if he is fit on even one leg”.
Speaking on Colors Cineplex, Zaheer admitted that while it would be happy news if Pant makes a great return in IPL, he wrote off the idea of him making the T20 World Cup team, explaining that making a comeback of that level, after almost 15 months on the sidelines with no match practice, will take time.
“If you see Rishabh Pant’s journey, the turn he has gone through is not easy for any player. Firstly, everyone who is attached to cricket will be happy once he comes back on the field. He has a lot of hurdles to cross,” Zaheer said. “Firstly, he has to come back and play. It’s not easy at this level. You need to get used to it and get the rhythm back. Those things might take time. It’s great if it doesn’t. However, keeping all things in mind, even if he has a very good IPL, I don’t think the team will be thinking in that direction.”
Dravid not ruling out Pant option
Zaheer’s comment came just a few days after Dravid dropped a subtle mention of the role IPL 2024 could play in India picking their two wicketkeeping options. While the likes of Jitesh Sharma, Ishan Kishan and Sanju Samson have been tested so far by the management, Dravid will have a keen eye on KL Rahul and Pant during the IPL season before the selectors lock their final 15 for the ICC event in June.
“We’ve got quite a few keeping options out there. We saw a couple of guys in this game. There’s Sanju, Kishan and Rishabh, I mean, we have all these guys. We’ll just have to see how things pan out over the course of the next few months and make a decision on what we think is the best way to go,” the 51-year-old Bengaluru man said after the third T20I against Afghanistan.
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