Rishabh Pant could benefit from watching his own batting from the past to score more quickly for his franchise Delhi Capitals in the ongoing IPL 2022, feels former India opener Virender Sehwag. Pant though has scored decently so far across the three innings in the T20 league but the scoring-rate hasn’t been as high as he would like to be.
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Against Mumbai Indians in his team’s season opener, he was out for 1 but against Gujarat Titans he scored a vital 43 off 29 (strike-rate 148.28). He then made 39 against Lucknow Super Giants but for that, Pant consumed 36 deliveries (strike-rate 108.33) and that’s what could prove to be the difference between victory and defeat for DC, feels Sehwag.
Sehwag says Pant has to sort his ‘approach’ and not get trapped in the ‘responsible batting’ mode since he’s the captain.
“The only point Rishabh Pant needs to worry about is the approach with which he is playing. Wins and losses will keep happening,” Sehwag told Cricbuzz. “The number of deliveries he played, 30 or 32 balls, in that many deliveries you can score 60 runs. So if Pant scored 20 more runs, then it would have proved costly for LSG, but those runs weren’t scored.”
“Pant shouldn’t change his approach and (must) play with freedom. The day he fires, we all know he will win the match. But if he thinks that ‘I am the captain so should play with more responsibility’ then I don’t think he will be very successful this year. It is not his style to play with responsibility or he thinks that he has to be there till the end,” Sehwag opined.
Sehwag says if Pant thinks the ball is in his arc then he should got for the big hit.
“Pant should start hitting if he gets a bad delivery or take a single, there shouldn’t be a third option in his mind. He should have clear-cut thinking that ‘If it’s in my radar, I will hit it’,” he advised.
When asked should Pant take a leaf out of Sehwag’s school of batting by watching the legendary opener’s old videos, he replied, “Why mine? He should watch his own (old) videos. He has played like that whether its in Tests or ODIs or T20s, he has batted like that before. So he should watch how he himself played, sometimes that gives you confidence.”
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