Former captain Sourav Ganguly has urged Rishabh Pant to bat with responsibility during the upcoming five-match test series in India’s tour of England 2025.
Pant has faced severe criticism in recent times for his performance, especially for his shot selection. Recently, Legendary Sunil Gavaskar has called his shot selection ‘stupid’ after he lost his wicket playing an unorthodox shot during the Boxing Day Test against Australia.
The wk-batter struggled to score runs in the concluded IPL 2025 despite completing a campaign with a century.
During the tour of Australia, Rishabh Pant amassed 255 runs from nine innings. His scores across the five tests were 37, 1, 21, 28,9 28, 30, 40 and 61.
With Rishabh Pant gear up for the challenging series against England, he has received a piece of advice from Sourav Ganguly. Talking to media, the former cricketer mentioned Rishabh Pant’s poor performance in Australia last season.
He pointed out the 29-year old has played two many shots in Australia and swung at every ball. He also adviced him to be cautious in England conditions.
“I did not like what I saw of him in Australia. Too many shots. Just too many shots. He was just swinging at every ball, and that’s not how you bat in conditions where the ball was moving around a bit. He needs to show fight,” said former India captain.
“He has a very good defence. That’s what I want to see. I want him to fight and grind down. Be ugly. Look ugly. But don’t swing at every ball and give it away. I know he is a stroke-maker and that’s his strength, but then he will have to adapt and play accordingly,” he added.
The tour of England will mark the beginning of India’s new World Test Championship (WTC) cycle. Rishabh Pant has been named the vice-captain for the England series, with Shubman Gill will take over captaincy duties.
The first match of the test series will be played between June 20 and 24 at Headingley.
