Ahmedabad (Gujarat) [India], March 6 (ANI): India head coach Ravi Shastri heaped praise on wicketkeeper-batsman Rishabh Pant and called him a magnificent talent as he displayed great performance throughout the series with both bat and wicket-keeping gloves.
Team India on Saturday roared into the final of the inaugural edition of the ICC World Test Championship (WTC) following an emphatic 3-1 series win over England.
Pant played a knock of 101 runs in the first innings which Shastri termed as the best counter-attacking innings he has ever seen in India.
“Pant has been simply magnificent. We were hard on him. Nothing comes easy. He was told in no uncertain terms that he has got to respect the game a little more. He’s got to lose a bit of weight and work hard on his keeping. We know the talent he has and he has responded. He has worked like hell for the last few months and the results are here to see. Yesterday’s innings was the best counter-attacking innings I have seen in India,” Shastri said in the post-match presentation.
Shastri further talked about the first innings partnerships which Pant had with Rohit Sharma and Washington Sundar.
“It was a two-phase innings. He built a partnership with Rohit playing against his nature — to do that is not easy — and to turn it on after 50. Keeping has been magnificent and Washi was outstanding too,” he said.
It was a no-show from the English batsmen once again as they looked completely clueless after walking into the middle in the post-lunch session with the score on 6/0. Dan Lawrence (50) was the only player who had some answer to the duo of Ashwin and Axar as none of the other batsmen seemed to have the technical acumen to dig in, barring skipper Joe Root (30).
But once Ashwin sent back Root, it was all about delaying the humiliation for the English batsmen. Ashwin picking up Jonny Bairstow for a golden duck only added to England’s misery. (ANI)