Dravid: India mentor backs Pant despite poor South Africa series

• India lead trainer Rahul Dravid said Rishabh Pant stays an “basic part” of the group’s batting-line up in spite of battling for runs in their Twenty20 International series against South Africa.
• Driving a second-string India side instead of harmed commander KL Rahul, Pant scored 57 runs in the initial four matches and was on one when Sunday’s last match in Bengaluru was deserted because of downpour. The series finished 2-2.

Dravid told columnists on Sunday, “He stays a vital piece of our batting line-up.”  “We understand how he manages the power he has.

Obviously, by and by, he would have jumped at the chance to have scored a couple of additional runs.

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“While you’re requesting that individuals play a somewhat seriously going after brand of cricket in the center overs and to take the game on somewhat more, in some cases passing judgment on in light of a few games is hard.

“As far as we might be concerned, he is positively an extremely enormous piece of our arrangements going on in the following couple of months.”

Heading into the series, Pant had scored 340 runs in the Indian Premier League at a strike pace of 151.78 – a lot higher than his 113.95 and 128.52 in the past two seasons yet lower than in 2018 and 2019.

“I thought he had a very decent IPL. He probably won’t have looked great on the midpoints, however his strike rate was great,” Dravid said.

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“He hoped to move that up a tad – to where he was likely a long time back.

“We will trust that we can get those sorts of numbers from him at the global level too. In that cycle, he could turn out badly in a couple of games.”