Being the BCCI president, Sourav Ganguly understands he can’t make public his favourite player in the current Indian side.

But when it comes to Rishabh Pant, someone he has backed since his days as mentor of Delhi Capitals, Sourav is simply “obsessed” with the wicketkeeper-batsman who has been a sensation for Team India over the last few months.

Hailing Pant as an “absolute match-winner”, Sourav also lauded Shardul Thakur for having the “courage and guts” to perform at the highest level.

“There are some fantastic players in the Indian team. As the president of the Board, I should not be saying who my favourite player is. All of them are my favourites.

“But I do enjoy Rohit (Sharma), (Virat) Kohli and I’m obsessed with Rishabh Pant because I think he is just an absolute match-winner,” Sourav said during an online session on how to deal with failures and successes on Saturday.

Rishabh Pant. (Twitter)

“(Jasprit) Bumrah, (Mohammed) Shami are very good too, while I also like Shardul Thakur a lot because he has got courage and guts to deliver at the top level.”

So vast is India’s cricketing talent pool that every generation will keep producing world-beaters, Sourav believes. “There’s abundance of cricketing talent in India that one just can’t imagine. So much of josh regarding cricket and the kids also love to play the game so much which helps in churning out so many players.

“During (Sunil) Gavaskar’s time, people used to think who after him? But then Sachin Tendulkar arrived, and so did Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble and so on. After them, we now have Virat, Rohit, Pant, Bumrah...

“So I feel that the kind of talent India has when it comes to cricket that every generation will produce one world-beater.”

Explaining how cricket has become a religion in India, Sourav said: “It is a religion because it has brought about success. The players have proven themselves at the highest level.”