Rishabh Pant spills a simple catch to give Shaun Marsh a life

Rishabh Pant has been adding a lot of flavour to the ongoing Test series with his sledging attempts as well as his batting but the wicketkeeper-batsman had a slip that raises questions. On the first day of the Perth Test, he dropped a simple catch from Shaun Marsh off the bowling of Hanuma Vihari and it left everybody who witnessed the instance appalled.

Australia were 265 for 6 with a few overs left to be played on Day 1 of the Test which is the first to be played at the new Perth Stadium after Tim Paine won the toss and elected to bat. The Aussie openers put up a 112-run partnership with Marcus Harris, playing only his second Test, scoring 70. His partner Aaron Finch also scored a fifty (50).

However, the fall of the opening wicket saw the hosts facing a mini slide in the top order and could have been in the worst position had Pant grabbed that catch. They were at 186 for 4 when the Indian keeper fumbled. It was a short and wide delivery from the part-time off-spinner. Marsh wanted to cut it and punish the loose ball but couldn’t quite get the shot right.

He managed a thick edge with no deflection and the ball went straight into Pant’s gloves that were placed at the right spot. He came too hard at the ball and thus it popped out giving him no chance to reclaim it. The youngster needs to grab such chances in a high-value game like this as it can dictate the final outcome.

The fifth-wicket partnership between Marsh (45) and Travis Head (58) was worth 84 runs. Marsh despite the life on 24, didn’t make the Indians really pay for it and fell to Vihari five short of a half century.

“There was no deflection. So those are the ones that are easy to take for a keeper. He had his hands at the right place, no deflection, just hard a hand at the ball that’s coming,” said former India cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar who was at the commentary box.

Here is the video of the dropped chance:

Ishant Sharma and Vihari were the pick of the bowlers with 2 wickets each while Jasprit Bumrah and Umesh Yadav took a scalp each till the last reports came in.

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