Rishabh Pant’s failure against Zimbabwe may not cost him his place in India’s XI in their semi-final clash as head coach Rahul Dravid hinted that he has a plan to utilise the left-handed wicketkeeper-batter’s skills against England.
Pant played his first game of this T20 World Cup in India’s last group league match, against Zimbabwe, but scored only 3.
“I don’t think we judge people on one game, and sometimes whether we play them or not is not based on one game,” Dravid said after India’s 71- run victory over Zimbabwe on Sunday.
“Sometimes it’s just match-ups. We need to look at what are the skills we might need against the kind of bowlers we might come up against. So a lot of things go into these kind of decisions,” said Dravid.
He also reiterated that the team management had never lost faith in Pant. “It’s not that we ever lost confidence in Rishabh. We’ve got confidence in all of our 15 players who play here. It’s only 11 guys who can play, and it depends on the combinations that you have.
“The very fact that they are here and they’re part of the World Cup means that we have a lot of confidence in them. It means that anytime they can be called on to play in the XI.
“Yes, you can only play 11 at a time... Rishabh is someone that as a lot of you would have been seeing, has been travelling with us.
“He’s been batting a lot in the nets, he’s been hitting a lot of balls, doing a lot of fielding practice and sort of keeping practice and keeping himself ready,” Dravid explained.
Team combination
The playing XI for the semi-final against Jos Buttler’s England will be chosen keeping in mind the shorter dimensions of the Adelaide Oval, Dravid said.
Asked if Yuzvendra Chahal may get a look in, Dravid said: “Like I said earlier, I think we have a completely open mind about everyone in our 15. We believe anybody who comes into the 15 will not potentially make us weaker, the kind of squad we've picked.”
“We’ll have to go there and see... If it’s slow, we’ll play according to those situations. If we think it might play differently, then we’ll have to put up a squad to match that.
