R Sridhar reveals Rishabh Pant’s reaction during 36-all out in Adelaide
Rishabh Pant didn't play in the Adelaide Test in which India got all-out for 36
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Sep 19, 2022 12:03 pm
R Sridhar, Rishabh Pant (Image Credit: Twitter)
India had a horrible end to the Adelaide Test in December 2020. On Day Three of the game, they got all-out on 36, their lowest total in Test history. In that game, Rishabh Pant didn’t play as Wriddhimaan Saha was preferred by the team management. During that day, the former was practicing with the then-fielding coach, R Sridhar.
In a conversation, Sridhar revealed that he and Pant were working on the latter’s keeping when they heard a lot of noises. The former India fielding coach added that they hoped that a wicket didn’t fall. However, much to their surprise, when they came back after aborting the practice session, they saw the scorecard and couldn’t believe themselves as it read 21/7.
“In the 2021 series against Australia, it was a toss-up between a better WK and a better batsman, and the vote went to Wriddhiman Saha. At that time, he was the best wicketkeeper in the world. But then, the 36-all-out happened,” Sridhar recalled on cricket.com.
“You won’t believe, on the Day 3 morning when the wickets got tumbling, Pant and I were outside on the practice pitches, working on keeping. We kept hearing these loud ‘oooohhhs’ and thunderous applauses at Adelaide Oval. And we were both like, ‘Oh I hope it’s not a wicket’. And after about 20 minutes, we aborted our keeping session and came running into the stadium to see what the score was. It was 21/7. Me and Rishabh were like, ‘What has just happened here?!’ We didn’t even see it live,” he added.
The team management realized we need a left-hander in the team: R Sridhar
Sridhar further added the team realized they need to include a left-hander in the team after the 36 all-out fiasco. Sridhar said that this was one of the reasons to include Pant for the rest of the series.
“And then, we realized that we don’t have a left-hander in the top-6. We had all the right-handers. We wanted to bring a left-hander in the series and we got Rishabh Pant. He played from the 2nd Test and the rest, as they say, is history,” said Sridhar.
