If you ask any Indian cricket fans – even those who didn’t follow the Indian Premier League – to name young cricketers who are the future of Indian cricket, chances are the majority will have definitely name Rishabh Pant and Sanju Samson as players who have got what it takes to serve the country.
Pant is in the last year of his teens, but sample some of his accomplishments so far:
- He holds the record for the fastest known half-century in U19 ODIs (18 balls Vs. Nepal)
- He holds the record for the fastest-known hundred in the Ranji Trophy (48 balls Vs. Jharkhand)
- Second-highest innings score by a Delhi batsman in the Ranji Trophy (308 Vs. Maharashtra)
- Third-youngest to score a triple century in Ranji Trophy (19 yrs & 12 days)
- He became only the second wicket-keeper to score a triple century in the Ranji Trophy
Pant’s Packed Resume
In February this year, Pant – after a stunning Ranji Trophy season - was drafted into the Indian team for the T20 series against England. The wicketkeeper-batsman from Delhi was handed a debut in the third T20I in Bengaluru – making him the youngest Indian to play T20Is.
A couple of months later, Pant donned the Delhi Daredevils jersey in the IPL. He started the tournament with a bang – scoring a typically stroke-filled 57 against RCB in the immediate aftermath of a personal tragedy; the left-hander, batting in the middle order, struck four sixes and three boundaries in his 36-ball knock that kept DD in the hunt until his last-over dismissal.
As the season rolled on, Pant played a few more exciting knocks; one of his standout knocks was the 97 in the run-chase against the Gujarat Lions. Some of the strokes Pant played in that innings left you in awe; the thought process was clear, there was muscle and timing, and the ball disappeared to all parts of the Feroze Shah Kotla. It was a stunning innings; Suresh Raina, the opposing captain in that match, actually walked up to Pant, had a few words of appreciation and even consoled the youngster on missing out a well-deserved three-figure score.
Even Sachin Tendulkar took to social media and called it ‘one of the best innings he has seen in the IPL’.
In the 14 matches Pant played in IPL 2017, he scored a total of 366 runs at a strike-rate of 166, with two half-centuries to his credit.
Pant’s teammate Sanju Samson has that extra something too – the ability to pick the line and length early, and the gift of timing. Samson doesn’t have to bludgeon the ball; he can do as much damage by just caressing the ball. That talent was there for all to see when he scored the first hundred of IPL 2017.
There is no doubting the ability or the talent the youngsters possess. However, if one were to look at the performance of Samson and Pant critically, did they do justice to the opportunities? Did they do justice to the opportunity of working under the mentorship of Rahul Dravid? Honest answer, No!
A Lost Opportunity?
In his long career at the international level, Rahul Dravid was the embodiment of consistency, application, patience, among many other things. Do you see an of these virtues in the two youngsters? The two youngsters may be immensely talented, but what’s the point in having all the talent and skill in the world if it doesn’t benefit anyone.
When Pant and Samson got going, they were a treat to the eyes. But if you look at the IPL 2017 campaign of both players, it was a case of hit or miss. Pant had seven good innings, one decent knock and six single-digit scores. Samson had 6 good innings, two reasonable hits and 6 failures. Sunil Narine – KKR’s acceptable hit-and-miss experiment – had four good scores, two decent knocks and eight poor scores. You’d surely expect a lot more from specialist batsmen like Pant and Samson, wouldn’t you?
The T20 format is demanding in that it doesn’t give the batsmen time for sighters. But surely batsmen can take a delivery or two to understand the pulse of things in the middle. T20 is not all slam-bang stuff; you cannot go blind and throw your bat at everything. Except for situations where your team needs six off the last ball, or twelve off the last two balls, or other such equations, you can always take a ball or two to understand the pulse of things in the middle.
Also, T20 cricket is not all about hitting the big sixes; in T20s, batsmen are taught to look at 6-4-3-2-1 – meaning always look for a six, but coaches will never tell you ‘look for sixes only’. If you can’t hit one over the ropes, switch to a lower gear and attempt a boundary along the ground. If that option is not available, always look at finding the gaps and picking up 3s, 2s or 1s.
Who better than Dravid to share such gold snippets. But alas, Pant and Samson seem to have missed those classes when these batting pearls were shared. Pant was dismissed for a blob on three occasions this season – all of them caught on the boundary. Samson was dismissed for a duck twice – caught playing an aggressive shot on both occasions.
If successful international batsmen – like David Warner and Virat Kohli – can leave behind their flamboyant game, adapt and toil for their runs, surely youngsters like Pant and Samson ought to be doing that frequently.
Pant and Samson had the opportunity to take the IPL by storm. They could have become better batsmen working and learning from Rahul Dravid. But, from what we saw, they squandered away the opportunity to become the finished product. They’ve certainly failed the ‘application’ and ‘consistency’ tests of batsmanship.
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