Why Rishabh Pant is not playing 1st ODI vs Sri Lanka

Why Rishabh Pant is not playing 1st ODI vs Sri Lanka

Why Rishabh Pant is not playing 1st ODI vs Sri Lanka, After winning the T20 World Cup recently to break the 17-year shortest format WC drought, team India under Rohit Sharma is now preparing for the next challenge, the ICC Champions Trophy, which will take place in February-March next year.  

India started their preparations for the mega event with the 3-match ODI series against Sri Lanka today in Colombo and picked KL Rahul over Rishabh Pant as their first-choice wicketkeeper in the opening ODI.  

KL Rahul, who suffered an injury during the IPL 2023 campaign made his international comeback in Asia Cup 2023 and since then handling the responsibility of the wicketkeeper batter for India in one-day internationals.  

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He has featured in 21 matches since the continental event has scored 834 at a whopping average of 69.50, including two hundreds.  

With Champions Trophy 2025 likely to be played in the 50-over format and is only six months away from now, skipper and coach will try to restrict to their tried and settled wicketkeeper batter option.  

However, Rishabh Pant was a regular wicketkeeper batter for India in all three formats before missing an over a year of action due to horrifying car accident he witnessed in December 2022. Pant has managed to recover from that and made his return in competitive cricket by playing in IPL 2024.

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He was part of team India’s T20 World cup winning squad and has recorded third highest runs for the side in the multi team event. 

But with Pant mostly playing in T20 cricket since his comeback, and India only have six matches to balance their side ahead of the Champions Trophy 2025, including the match today, the management has answered the question about who’s going to be their first-choice wicketkeeper in one-dayers by picking KL Rahul.

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India’s playing 11 for 1st ODI vs Sri Lanka  

Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (wk), Shivam Dube, Washington Sundar, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Arshdeep Singh, Mohammed Siraj