Does Rishabh Pant Deserve A Place In Test Series Against Bangladesh?

Rishabh Pant has been the talk of the town since his return to international cricket after a horrific car accident in 2019 when he was travelling to Roorkee to meet his family. After the severe incident, he was out for more than 1 year from the game, which he loved the most. But once he got well, he made an outstanding return by being among the leading run-getters in the 17th edition of the IP (Indian Premier League) which made him pick in the 15-man squad for the T20 World Cup. He played a crucial role in helping Men in Blue to end the title drought of 17 long years through his aggressive batting approach that helped the Indian team to win 9 consecutive games.

However, Pant has proved his form and fitness in the shorter format of the game. But the question is can he make a return to the long format that India is going to play in the upcoming months with teams like Bangladesh, Australia, and  New Zealand for the ICC World Test Championship? Through this news piece, we will talk about the chances of Rishabh Pant making a comeback in India’s test team.

The Southpaw batter is known for his orthodox and attacking gameplay, where he used to dominate bowlers. Despite his brilliant form and comeback, he represented the Indian team in test cricket in 2022 against Bangladesh in Mirpur. It has been more than 1 year for Rishabh Pant to play in India’s White jersey. Going further, let’s look at Delhi-bron batter stats in Test Cricket.

The Delhi Capitals captain has played a total of 33 Test games for the Indian team, where he has scored 2271 runs with an average of 43, having 5 hundreds to his name. Looking at the above stats and average of Rishabh Pant, he definitely deserves a place in India’s test team squad as he can replace KL Rahul, who is seen struggling with his form in international cricket.

Irrespective of making a comeback in India’s ODI series against Sri Lanka, he failed to score runs in the first 2 games of the series before being dropped from the team in the final match. KL Rahul’s form is a big concern for the Indian team as young players like Riyan Parag, Dhruv Jurel and Sanju Samson are performing well once getting a chance. 

Apart from KL Rahul, the Indian team has gone with young player Dhruv Jurel, who impressed everyone with his batting and wicket-keeping skills. However, he is just 23 years old to play against and needs to learn a lot of things. However, he can be the second-choice wicket-keeper batter for the Indian team in the long format after Rishabh Pant.

Nevertheless, it totally depends on Rishabh Pant how he impresses the selectors with his fitness before heading to the longest format of the game where he needs to play continuously for 5 days.

India will host Bangladesh for 3 match T20I and 2 test series starting September 19, where they will be seen playing 3 T20Is and 2 Test. This series will be very important for the Indian team to find their team combination before heading to New Zealand and Australia.

India’s Probable Playing XI against Bangladesh:

Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Yashsvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, Ravindra Jadeja, Jaspreet Bumrah, Rishabh Pant, Axar Patel, Mohammed Siraj, Shreyas Iyer, Kuldeep Yadav