Follow Us;Resize=(820,462) "Rishabh Pant")
Rishabh Pant discusses his role as a senior player in the Indian Test team ahead of the England series. He emphasizes focusing on individual performance and sharing his experience with younger players, rather than dwelling on his seniority.
Team India vice-captain Rishabh Pant has opened up on his role as a senior player in the side ahead of the England Test series. Team India will embark on a new era in Test cricket when they take on England in the first Test of the five-match series at Headingley in Leeds on Friday, June 20.
Team India is without three stalwarts - Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, and Ravichandran Ashwin. Rohit and Kohli stepped away from Test cricket before the England tour, while Ashwin called time on his international career midway through the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, after the Gabba Test ended in a draw. With the retirements of senior players from the longest format, Rishabh Pant finds himself as one of the most experienced figures in the dressing room.
Rishabh Pant was touted as India’s next Test captain, given his leadership potential, but the role was given to Shubman Gill, and the team management and selectors instead entrusted Pant with vice-captaincy duties.
Related Articles
Individual game over senior tag
Speaking at the press conference ahead of the first Test at Headingley, Rishabh Pant stated that he is not focusing on his senior part in the team rather on contributing through individual performances, while sharing his experience with the youngsters in the team.
“It feels good, but at the same time, you know it's a responsibility also to share your knowledge, your experience with our new players, new youngsters coming to the team.” Pant said.
“But at the same time, not focusing on that senior part too much, you still have to play the game, you still have to learn the game as an individual, and keep helping people around you. That's how I look at it," he added.
Rishabh Pant has set off for his third England Test tour after 2018 and 2021/22, where he played remarkably well. Pant has a good record against England in English conditions, scoring 511 runs, including two centuries and two fifties, at an average of 34.06 in 15 innings.
Pant unfazed by vice-captaincy pressure
Further speaking about his role as a vice-captain and senior player in the Indian team, Rishabh Pant does not see his seniority will affect on batting when he is out in the middle.
“See, it's extracted responsibility, but at the same time, when you are in the middle of the ground, you are not thinking, 'Oh, I'm the vice-captain. I'm the senior player,” the southpaw told the reporters.
“You're just a batsman in the middle. You've got to do the best you can from your side, and eventually the game will take care of itself," he added.
Embed
After the retirements of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant and KL Rahul are the senior-most batters in the current India squad, in terms of the number of matches played in the longest format of the game, and are expected to bulk of the responsibility while guiding the younger players through the high-pressure England series.
Sai Sudharsan, Karun Nair, Shardul Thakur, Abhimanyu Easwaran, and Arshdeep Singh were added to the India squad, signalling a fresh chapter in Indian Test cricket as the team set to embrace a generational shift with a focus on youth and long-term building under Shubman Gill’s leadership.
