Rishabh Pant rarely gets out playing a defence: Ravichandran Ashwin

The Border Gavaskar series final Test in Sydney witnessed one of the most entertaining knocks from Rishabh Pant who scored a brilliant 61 from 27 deliveries. The southpaw took on the pacers and smashed the bowlers all over the park at the Sydney Cricket Ground(SCG). His innings included six fours and four sixes.

Pant showed his fearless approach which was missing in the first innings of the match where he scored a 98 ball 40. The match might have ended in Australia’s favour but there was still a lot of praise which was given to Pant for his incredible knock. Retired India off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin also spoke highly of the two innings of Pant on his YouTube channel and also said that he has one of the best defences in the game.

“I have always grown up hearing that you have to fight it out, In Sydney, he played two different knocks in one single game. He got hit everywhere and scored a 40, it will be the least spoken innings of Rishabh Pant. It is very unfair. In the second innings, he scored a swashbuckling fifty, earning him a lot of praise. Everyone forgot that first innings and praised him for the second knock." Ashwin said.

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“We must realise that Rishabh Pant rarely gets out playing a defence. He’s got one of the best defences in world cricket. Defence has become a challenging aspect, he has the best defence with a soft hand. I have bowled to him a lot in the nets, he’s not gotten out, he doesn’t get an edge, he doesn’t get LBW, and he has the best defence. I have tried telling it to him. One opinion about Rishabh was that he plays a lot of shots, he has to fight it out in Test cricket," the former 2011 World Cup winner added.

Pant finished the BGT series with 255 runs from the five matches he played which he has scored at an average of 28.33. Though it was not as iconic as his performances in the 2020-21 series he was still the 6th highest run-getter in the series which was finally won 3-1 by the Aussies.