Former Australia National Cricket Team wicketkeeper-batsman Ian Healy has called the star India National Cricket Team wicketkeeper-batsman Rishabh Pant a ‘work in progress’ cricketer.
Ian Healy opined that Rishabh Pant’s wicketkeeping is a work in progress, and he will have to make a lot of improvements to get better at it.
Rishabh Pant has 19 dismissals to his name in BGT 2024-25
The star India National Cricket Team wicketkeeper-batsman has not been at his best behind the stumps in the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25.
Pant has dropped quite a few catches and has looked sloppy while doing the wicketkeeping. However, despite not being at his best, Pant has 19 dismissals to his name.
In three matches in Perth, Adelaide, and Brisbane, Rishabh Pant has taken 19 catches behind the stumps, with his best performance being 5 catches in an innings. Also, his dismissal per innings ratio is 3.166.
Pant’s numbers are better than the Australia National Cricket Team wicketkeeper-batsman Alex Carey, who has 15 dismissals to his name with 13 catches and 2 stumpings and a dismissal per innings rstio of 2.5.
Rishabh Pant is a work in progress, but I saw him in the mornings and like the drills he is doing – Ian Healy
Meanwhile, Ian Healy said that Pant is bound to improve his keeping skills and pointed out that the Indian superstar makes the wrong initial movements at times, which leads to him dropping catches.
“Rishabh Pant is a work in progress, but I saw him in the mornings and like the drills he is doing; he is bound to improve more. At times, as he did when he dropped a catch in this series earlier, he can make an initial wrong movement.
“Some keepers like to move a touch to their left first and then press from there. It’s better to be still and if you can’t, then you start that trigger movement a touch early so that by the time the ball is out there, you can still press to the right side. One of those two decisions have to be made,” Healy told the Indian Express.
Rishabh Pant has struggled with the bat in BGT 2024-25
Pant has also been poor with the bat in the five-match Test series against Australia National Cricket Team. Expectations were pretty high from Rishabh Pant when India landed in Australia considering his past heroics in the country.
Pant has been getting off to good starts and has played his natural aggressive game. However, he has failed to convert those starts into big scores.
The 27-year-old has registered scores of 37, 1, 21, 28, and 9 in the five innings that he has batted. Overall, he has scored just 96 runs at an average of 19.20 and a strike rate of 60.00. His poor returns with the bat have been one of the main reasons behind India’s struggles in the batting department.