Former India off-spinner R Ashwin has requested Team India coach Gautam Gambhir and captain Shubman Gill to have a word with Rishabh Pant ahead of the second Test against England, to be played in Birmingham starting July 2.Rishabh Pant had an excellent outing with the bat in Leeds, where the wicketkeeper-batter slammed centuries in both innings. But his heroics were not enough, as India lost the Test by five wickets.“Rishabh had a fabulous game as a batter. I would like to repeat that Rishabh has got a great defence. There is not a single shot in the book that he cannot play,” Ashwin said on his YouTube channel Ash Ki Baat.However, Ashwin had one suggestion for Pant — that next time when he crosses 100, he should try and convert it into a double century.“I sometimes feel if I were Gautam Gambhir or Shubman Gill, I would take Rishabh Pant aside and say, ‘Bhai, tune kya batting kiya hai, kamaal ka batting kiya tune’ (Brother, you’ve batted brilliantly). I would love to be a batter with the kind of ability you have. But can I request you to make a double hundred next time when you’re batting on 130?” said Ashwin.“You know we won’t get much contribution from the lower order, so please take the team to the last wicket. But what a fabulous batsman, what a fabulous cricketer, what a talented player,” he added.India head coach Gautam Gambhir, however, seemed in no mood to laud individual brilliance, like Pant’s twin hundreds, when asked about the positives from the opening Test loss to England, saying everything boils down to results — which his team could not achieve.
Never one to mince words or hide disappointment, Gambhir offered a rather blunt response to a question on Pant’s efforts that ultimately could not tilt the game in India’s favour.“There are three more centuries as well. Those are big positives too. Thank you,” was his one-line answer to a pointed question on Pant.When pressed further on the overall positives, Gambhir said, “I would have liked if you said there was a hundred from Yashasvi (Jaiswal), a hundred from Shubman (Gill) on debut as captain, a hundred from KL (Rahul), and two centuries from Rishabh. So, five centuries in a Test match is a great start, to be honest. And hopefully, the question could have been better,” he added.
