It is just very rare to see Rishabh Pant open the innings. Somehow he has just settled as a middle-order batsman, be it in international cricket, or IPL. In his ODI career, he has just opened once, in T20Is, the number is five times, and in IPL, four times. And the common feature among all those innings is — he has failed in them.
Rishabh Pant Could be a Choice for Opener
But the southpaw shouldn’t be judged on such a small sample size. Time-and-again he has shown as to how devastating he can be with his raw, brute force. Yes, the stats are against him, but something says, that Rishabh Pant is needed at the top of the order for LSG, now that he is the captain, and needs to lead from the front.
One of the criticisms that KL Rahul faced in IPL 2024 was, his strike-rate wasn’t impressive at all, and despite him scoring runs, he couldn’t lead his side to wins regularly. For the record, he had scored 520 runs in 14 matches, at an average of 37, but his strike-rate was a lowly 136. The new skipper now, Pant has a chance to make amends to the past mistakes of his predecessor.
Despite Modest Returns, Should Partner Mitch Marsh
With the squad that LSG has assembled there is no clarity, who would be Mitchell Marsh’s opening partner — there are a few contenders in Aiden Markram and Ayush Badoni, but then, why not take the matters in own hand. It is worth noting that Pant had started out as an opener in the U-19 World Cup of 2016, where he had finished as one of the leading run-getters for the side, after opening with Ishan Kishan.
In the 6 matches he played there, he had scored 267 runs at an average of 44 and a strike-rate of 104. So, finally it might be time to see him at the top of the order once again, for LSG’s good.
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