Kolkata: Former India captain Sourav Ganguly was left spellbound after Rishabh Pant’s (128 n o, 63b, 15×4, 7×6) blistering knock against Sunrisers Hyderabad in an IPL-XI encounter, Thursday and feels that the Delhi Daredevils wicketkeeper-batsman will get to play for the national team in due time.
“For Rishabh it will happen, he will get there. I think he is the future,” Ganguly said at a promotional event here.
Incidentally, the knock came two days after the 20-year-old was ignored from India’s T20 squad for their tour of Ireland and England and the left-hander arguably demolished the best bowling attack of the tournament notching up the highest T20 score by an Indian.
“For the likes of Pant, Ishan Kishan (who scored a 21-ball 62), time will come. They are young, there’s no hurry. They will get matured as they play more games with time. They will play for India in the years to come,” added Ganguly.
“But having said that consistency is important, hope it’s not just one off. I was reading about Ishan Kishan after that knock in Kolkata. When you pick someone for the country, you look at consistency – how many times does he keep doing that. Yes, T20 is different, opportunities are a lot lesser.”
Defending the selectors’ decision on selecting the Indian team for the upcoming UK tour, Ganguly said: “You can’t replace MS Dhoni at the moment, then you have Dinesh Karthik who also deserves a chance in the national side, especially after what he did in Sri Lanka to win that game which was absolutely lost for India. Dinesh deserves more than anybody else because I think he is a very good player.”
However, Pant’s knock reminded Ganguly of Brendon McCullum’s 73-ball 158 n o against Royal Challengers Bangalore in the opening night of the IPL when Kolkata Knight Riders won by 140 runs at the M Chinnaswamy stadium April 18, 2008.
“I saw McCullum knock from the other end in the first game of IPL. I was batting with him, but to see Rishabh Pant play the way he did yesterday (Thursday) was phenomenal,” Ganguly asserted.
