Rishabh Pant out of Indian World Cup team: The 21-year old wicket-keeper batsman has been left out of the World Cup squad.
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Indian selectors have left out 21-year old wicket-keeper batsman Rishabh Pant from the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 squad. In a bid to earn his place, Pant was in a long-fought contest with senior wicket-keeper batsman Dinesh Karthik.
Karthik had regularly featured in the India’s ODI squad last year. However, he was dropped for Pant in a bid to give more chances to the southpaw. The duo along with Mahendra Singh Dhoni were rotated across limited-over formats to make sure that none out of Karthik or Pant are bereft for chances.
While Dhoni was an automatic selection for the tournament, it was always going to be one out the other two.
More than anything, Pant’s inability to perform in ODIs has seen him being left out of the squad. In five ODIs, Pant has scored 93 runs at an average of 23.25 and a strike rate of 130.98. Not that Karthik has piled heaps of runs, but him finishing matches for India in crunch situations doubtlessly pressed his case ahead of Pant.
Speaking during the press conference, chief selector MSK Prasad opened up on reason behind naming Karthik ahead of Pant. Better wicket-keeping skills, experience and handling pressure in crunch situations were the reason given Prasad.
Rishabh Pant out of Indian World Cup team
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