The 3rd Test between
India & England begins at Mohali on 26th Nov 2016.
In a recent, Ranji match, Delhi's
top order responded strongly after being asked to follow on, scoring 214 for
the loss of three wickets. When Pant's turn came, he walked out to bat on an
empty stomach, again. "I get very little time for breakfast," he said
with a laugh. "Because, every day I either have batting or wicket-keeping
[drills before play]. That's the system in every match."
India have brought
Bhuvneshwar Kumar back into their squad for the last three Tests against
England. They have also left out Gautam Gambhir, leaving M Vijay and KL Rahul
as the only two specialist openers in the squad. Gambhir, released from the
squad during the second Test in Visakhapatnam, is playing for Delhi in their
Ranji Trophy match against Rajasthan in Wayanad, and was out for 10 in the
first innings.
Nick Compton wants India
pulled out of comfort zone and Series could be won as they did in 2012-13. Earlier, David Gower's 1984-85 tourists
managed to beat India after being one down with four to play, but cricket was
different then, and the absolutely critical key for England when playing India
in the modern, 21st-century, contemporary, up-to-date era of today is to be one
down with three to play. Statistics
could be misleading ! - Over the last one third of a century, England have won
100% of their series against India in which they have trailed by a Test with a
trio of matches remaining; and a mere 50% of the rubbers which they have led
with three Tests to play. But what happens only forms the basis of statistics !
More than eight years
after his previous Test match, and four years after his last international,
wicketkeeper Parthiv Patel has earned a recall to India's Test team. At 17
years and 153 days, he became Test cricket's youngest wicketkeeper in 2002; now
he will be the second-oldest member in the XI if no other change is made to the
side that took field in Visakhapatnam. Is that the right move ? the first option was Madhya Pradesh's Naman
Ojha, who played the last Test that Saha missed. Ojha missed the start of the
Ranji Trophy with injury. However, he did play MP's last match. Dinesh Karthik,
has been making lot of runs, but that also set the clock back in recalling
veterans. Some say that the selectors felt
it was too early to hand a debut to the 19-year-old Rishabh Pant, who has hit a
triple-hundred for Delhi this Ranji Trophy season and smashed a 48-ball ton in
a game in which he scored twin centuries.
Rishabh Pant is known to
followers of Indian Cricket after his good show in the Under-19 World Cup. In group matches, he slammed 3 successive fifty-plus score to guide India
into the semi-finals. He blasted the fastest U-19 international
half-century during the win against Nepal, scored 111 off 96 balls with 14
fours and two sixes, powering his team to a mammoth 349 for 6. From that time
on, he is being talked as successor to the great MSD.
Against Jharkhand, he took
mere 48 balls to reach his century in the second innings against Jharkhand -
one of the fastest hundreds by an Indian batsman in domestic first-class
cricket. Two batsmen have scored a century off 56 balls: Rajesh Borah in
1987-88 and VB Chandrasekhar in 1988-89.
He hit 21 sixes in that match - 8 in
the first innings and 13 in the second. The previous record by an Indian player
was 15 sixes by Yusuf Pathan in the Duleep Trophy final in 2009-10. Pant has
hit 44 sixes this season, the most by a distance.
113.01 Pant's strike rate this season, the
best among batsmen who have faced 100 or more balls. He had a strike rate of
over 100 in six out of seven innings this season, and the only innings in which
he did not do so was his triple-century - 308 off 326 balls.
One may jump to say that
things at Test level would be different ~ yet Ranji is a measurable yardstick. The
young keeper has covered a lot of distance, switched schools, moved bases in
the hunt for a coach and was even thrown out of an academy once. His
swashbuckling record-breaking fifty against Nepal established his credentials
on the big stage and probably inflated his going rate to Rs 1.9 crore from a
base price of Rs 10 lakh by the time he was bought by Delhi Daredevils.
~ and if someone says that
he is too young, the one who is back in the Indian team @ 31, debuted 3 years
before Dhoni as a 17 year old and is back after 8 years !
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar
24th Nov. 2016.
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