Indian head coach Gautam Gambhir has made it clear that KL Rahukl is the team’s first wicketkeeper for the Champions Trophy, which has Rishabh Pant’s future baffled.
Among all the players chosen for the England ODIs, only Pant wasn’t included in the playing 11 for any three of the games.
KL Rahul who initially batted at No.6 in the first two games, didn’t look comfortable and fared far better at no.5 with a useful 40 runs off 29 balls in India’s one-sided 142-run victory in the third ODI here.
“Ultimately, it is very difficult to talk about individuals. But all I can say is that if he is part of the squad, when time comes, he might get an opportunity. But at the moment, obviously, KL is the No 1 wicketkeeper and he has delivered for us,” said Gambhir.
“When you’ve got two wicket keepers in the squad, you can’t play both the wicketkeepers with the kind of quality we’ve got.”
“Hopefully, whenever he (Pant) gets that opportunity, he should be ready for it. That’s all I can say at the moment. Yes, KL is the one who’s going to start,” Gambhir added.
Gambhir said while there will never be a case of ticking all boxes without specifying what India did not achieve, he praised the team for the all-round show.
“See, there will never be a case where all the boxes will be ticked, but yes, (it is a) good result, important thing is that we were very very professional today,” he said.
“We could have easily seen this game as a dead rubber, but the important thing was that we wanted to try and put ourselves under pressure, we wanted to try and play this game as a must-win game and guys actually turned up like that.”
Gambhir also urged people not to mixup formats while comparing performances a case in point being Shubman Gill who have two fifties and a hundred in recently concluded ODI series after failing miserably on bouncy and seam-friendly Australian tracks.
“The problem is that we keep judging people after every innings. He’s still a young batter, he’s still 25.”
“He’s got a great future ahead of him and if he’s been consistent in one format… Test cricket is tough cricket. He’s shown that he belongs to that format as well,” Gambhir said.
“I hope that going forward, he can actually deliver in that (Test) format as well. If someone can do it in 50-over cricket, why can’t he do it in Test cricket as well? He’s played some really good innings in Test format as well.”
“By judging a young cricketer after every inning, we’re not going to carry Indian cricket forward like that.”
“You’ve got to start putting trust in these young players. He’s still 25. So, imagine what can happen in the next couple of years if we keep backing him and keep backing a lot of young cricketers in that dressing room. That is something which we need to be clear about,” he added.
He also spoke about managing Mohammed Shami‘s workload which is why the bowler played two matches each in the T20I and ODI series.
“We were trying to manage his workload, that’s the reason why we played him in two T20s and two ODIs and hopefully he’s going to be fresh and ready to go in the Champions Trophy,” he said.
