India needs to handle him in a judicious way' - Deep Dasgupta heaps praise on Rishabh Pant, calls him a match-winner

Rishabh Pant has been struggling to find his feet in international cricket. After making an impressive start to his Test career, Pant has been in and out of the Indian XI lately. With KL Rahul donning the gloves in the limited-overs format, Pant was dropped from the XI in the recently-concluded tours of New Zealand.

Former Indian wicket-keeper Deep Dasgupta recently spoked about the young Delhi lad and suggested ways to have score more runs. Former Bengal captain said the team management has been right in showing their faith on Rishabh Pant. He praised Pant but also said that the Indian team needs to handle him in a proper way.

‘He is a confident player as well’: Deep Dasgupta

“Yes, the team management is right in showing faith in him [Pant] and sticking to him. He is incredibly talented. He is a match-winner, or to put this way, he is a potential match-winner. He is a confident player as well. However, India needs to handle him in a judicious way,” Deep Dasgupta said during an interaction with India Today.

Deep Dasgupta, who was once the choice of the wicketkeeper-batsman for the Indian side back in early days of Sourav Ganguly’s tenure, also pointed out the importance of domestic cricket. Pant was with the Indian side during the entire tour of New Zealand, but the youngster got a chance to play only in the two Tests towards the end of the tour. Dasgupta said that Pant should have played domestic cricket while he was warming the bench on the Indian side.

“See he was picked in the team and he did not play for close to a month. He was benched and did not get a lot of games in New Zealand. What happens then is you don’t get opportunities. You would not get enough time to bat in the nets. Generally, players who are playing the match get a lot of opportunities at the nets.

Even if you get opportunities, you may not face the best bowlers. Ideally, he should have played domestic cricket and worked on his skills if he was not going to be picked for the matches,” the cricketer-turned-commentator said.

Dasgupta further said that even if Pant had figured out what was going wrong, there wasn’t a place for him to go and perform. “Every player needs improvement. Rishabh Pant also needs to work on a few areas in his game. He might have figured that out as well. He might have already figured out what needs to be done to improve his game. However, where would he do that? He needs to get game time to implement them,” Dasgupta added.