Rishabh Pant reminds me of Yuvraj Singh and Virender Sehwag: Suresh Raina

Rishabh Pant has had a start-stop international career so far. The team management has backed him time and again despite a string of poor performance. But KL Rahul emerging as the wicket-keeper has dropped Pant from the playing XI though he remains in the squad. The hype around his performances have been quite large and the media has been talking about the young batsman more than anyone.

However, Pant has always found the support of the senior players. Recently, during an Instagram live chat session with Yuzvendra Chahal, Suresh Raina was all praise of the batsman. The left-handed batsman from Uttar Pradesh had some kind words for the Delhi cricketer.

Rishabh Pant’s flick shot reminds Suresh Raina of Rahul Dravid

Suresh Raina praised Rishabh Pant by saying that he is a top cricketer and also went on to say that when he is dominant, the left-hander is as good as Yuvraj Singh and Virender Sehwag. Raina also said that Pant’s flick shot reminds him of Rahul Dravid.

“He (Pant) is a top cricketer when he plays well, you become happy, and he reminds of Yuvraj and Sehwag, he is as dominant as them, when he plays the flick, it reminds you of Dravid as well,” Raina said. Rishabh Pant was looked upon as MS Dhoni’s replacement. However, he lost his place in the side to KL Rahul.

The Karnataka batsman who was an occasional keeper was forced to take on the charge of keeping during an ODI earlier this year when Pant got injured while batting. And that has changed the entire team combination. During the limited-overs leg of New Zealand tour, Rahul was the favoured keeper-batsman. In fact, the Indian skipper has openly said he wants to stick to Rahul as the wicket-keeper.

The Delhi keeper-batsman did get a chance during the Test series but he couldn’t come up with big scores. Rishabh Pant has played 13 Tests so far and scored 814 runs at an average of 38.8. He has two centuries in Tests, one each in Australia and England. Even though he hasn’t really found any big scores in ODIs and T20Is, he remains a strong contender to find a place in the T20 World Cup squad.