Rishabh Pant, India’s wicket-keeper batsman, has had many ups and downs in his very brief career in international cricket. Rishabh was seen early on as a possible long-term replacement for MS Dhoni in the Indian team setup, and he fared well to make the transition from age-group cricket to the international stage. However, because of his aggressive batting style, he was criticized for failing to fire on a number of occasions.

But the Indian team management stuck with Pant, and he blossomed in Test cricket, scoring key match-winning runs, the most significant of which came in Brisbane in January 2021, when India won a remarkable second straight Test series on Australian soil.

Since then, Rishabh Pant has been a regular on the Indian Test team. However, his results for India in limited-overs formats have not been as impressive as they have been in Tests.

Pant bats in the middle order and is frequently called upon to be the aggressor late in the innings. However, there are times when he needs to bat in the middle overs to help build the innings. Pant’s pure attacking style as a batter explains why, according to former India opener Virender Sehwag, he might be a bigger asset for India in limited-overs cricket if he begins the batting for the team.

“We don’t play limited-overs cricket to score 50 or 100 runs, but to score at a fast tempo, regardless of the scenario or opponent,” Sehwag explains. “He’ll find himself in circumstances that demand more responsibility at No. 4 or 5, but if he opens, he’ll be a lot more successful,” Sehwag said on Sports18’s current Home of Heroes.

Sehwag began his international cricket career as a middle-order hitter before being upgraded to open the innings, and the rest, as they say, is history. Similar things happened to India’s batting hero Sachin Tendulkar after he was given the opportunity to start the batting in one-day internationals.

Pant has 715 runs in 24 One-Day Internationals and 683 runs in 43 Twenty-20 Internationals for India.