This is the first time Pant will captain at the international level but he has the experience of leading Delhi Capitals at the IPL. He has captained them in 30 games, winning 17 and losing 13.
“It’s a great feeling, especially getting an opportunity like this in your hometown,” Pant, who plays domestic cricket for Delhi, said. “There is nothing bigger than this. It didn’t come under very good circumstances but I will try to make most of it and give my 100%.
“I think it [having captained in the IPL] will help me a lot because when you keep doing the same thing over a period of time, you tend to improve. I am someone who keeps on learning from my mistakes and that’s something which is going to help me in the coming days as well.”
Without going into the specifics, Pant also hinted at India playing a different brand of cricket in the coming days. “As a team, we have certain goals that we want to achieve and we are continuously working on them,” he said. “At the end of the day, we have the [T20] World Cup [in October-November] at the back of our minds, so we are preparing with an eye on that. In the coming days, you will see a lot of changes in the way we play our cricket.”
The BCCI said in a release that both Rahul and Kuldeep would report to the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru, where the medical team will “assess them further and decide on the future course of treatment”. The board hasn’t sought any replacement for the injured duo.
In Rahul’s absence, Ruturaj Gaikwad and Ishan Kishan are likely to open the innings for India. In the spin department, the team management has options in the form of Axar Patel and Ravi Bishnoi, to pair with Yuzvendra Chahal.
The timing of Rahul’s injury will be a cause for concern for him as well as the team management, since it has come with the tour of England – which will start with the one-off Test – around the corner. Rahul is a part of the squad for that Test, which will be played from July 1 to 5 in Birmingham and is part of the World Test Championship. The Test is also part of the five-match Pataudi Trophy, which was cut short after the first four Tests last year because of a Covid-19 situation. Rahul was India’s second-highest run getter in those four Tests with 315 runs in eight innings, only behind Rohit’s tally of 368.
Squad: Rishabh Pant (capt, wk), Hardik Pandya (vice-capt), Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ishan Kishan, Deepak Hooda, Shreyas Iyer, Dinesh Karthik, Venkatesh Iyer, Yuzvendra Chahal, Axar Patel, Ravi Bishnoi, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Harshal Patel, Avesh Khan, Arshdeep Singh, Umran Malik