Former Indian batter and Kolkata Knight Riders mentor Gautam Gambhir has selected Rishabh Pant over Sanju Samson in his Playing XI for the T20 World Cup. He gave his views on it. Sanju Samson is in the form of his life as his leadership skills have been quite spot on and at the same time Rishabh Pant astonished everyone by making a terrific comeback after a life threatening accident in December 2022.
It will be interesting to see what combination skipper Rohit Sharma & head coach Rahul Dravid go in with. We all are well aware of the fact that India hasn’t won ICC T20 World Cup ever since the inception of IPL 2008. All eyes will be on Virat Kohli who has silenced all the critics over his strike rate controversy but the pitches in Caribbean & USA will be quite testing.
Gautam Gambhir states the reasons for Rishabh Pant and Sanju Samson
Indian team declared its team for the T20 World Cup Rishabh Pant and Sanju Samson have been included in the team. Gautam Gambhir shared his views and stated his reasons for selecting Rishabh Pant over Sanju Samson. He said:
“Both have equal quality. Sanju has amazing quality, and even Rishabh has amazing quality. If I had to pick, I’d probably pick Rishabh Pant because he is a natural middle-order batter. Sanju, if you see in IPL, he has batted at number three. Rishabh has batted at number five, six, and seven I think,” Gambhir said.
Rishabh Pant has a different variety of shots and being a left-hander he can play with a right-left combination he comes to bat generally at 5 or 6 in the IPL also he comes at this position so it will be easy for him to bat for India in World Cup.
“Looking at Team India’s combination, we need the wicketkeeper in that position and not in the top order. So I’d start with Rishabh Pant. Plus, he is a left-hander in the middle-order, which gives you a left-hand-right-hand combination,” he added.
“But again, if they see that Sanju can score more runs at number six or seven, they could go with him as well,” Gambhir concluded.