Rishabh Pant’s selection to play for India in the Twenty20 World Cup 2022 may have been influenced by the possibility of facing leg-spinner Adil Rashid in the semifinals, as indicated by the fact that head coach Rahul Dravid gave a strong enough indication that the decision to field Rishabh Pant was not made in isolation.
India plays England in the second semifinal of the ICC men’s T20 World Cup 2022 at Adelaide Oval on Thursday (November 10). Rishabh Pant finally gets a game in this tournament at the expense of Dinesh Karthik.
Pant has replaced Karthik on bowler-friendly Australian surfaces. Dravid remarked after India’s 71-run win, in which Pant scored three runs, that he doesn’t judge individuals on one game.
Dravid then said that Pant’s selection wasn’t made in isolation because he was considering a semifinal matchup with Adil Rashid. “Matchups happen. We must consider what skills we’ll need against various bowlers. “There are a lot of factors”, added Dravid.
He said team management never lost faith in Pant. “No, we never lost faith in Rishabh. We trust our 15 players. 11 guys can play, depending on the pairings. We have faith in them since they’re in the World Cup. They can play at any time.
“Yes, you can only play 11 at a time and some people miss out, but Rishabh has been traveling with us, as many of you know. He’s been batting in the nets, hitting balls, fielding, and keeping prepared. Today (Sunday) was our chance to give him a go, Dravid said.
Read more: Palak Muchhal Wedding Photos the first images from Palak and Mithun’s wedding have been released.
Dravid claimed Rohit Sharma won the toss to bat because they wanted to defend in Adelaide. We wanted to bat first if we could. We needed to win the toss. We bowled first against Pakistan when we got here to see how it felt to set a score in these conditions “Dravid said.
Chahal, to succeed Axar Patel?
Dravid is not one to give up playing eleven but claimed he would go into the game with an open mind given the shorter Adelaide Oval. Dravid stated, “We have an open mind about everyone in our 15.” We feel anyone who joins our 15 won’t make us weaker.
Dravid will decide after witnessing the Adelaide pitch, where spinners were key in Bangladesh vs. Pakistan. We’ll have to see. I watched some games today and the tracks were slow, grabbed, and turned. We may play on a fresh pitch in Adelaide; the one we used against Bangladesh didn’t spin. It was a different wicket in Adelaide, said Dravid.
India’s T20 World Cup 2022 semifinal XI vs England
Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant (wk), Hardik Pandya, Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel/Yuzvendra Chahal, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Arshdeep Singh, Mohammed Shami.
