Ganguly skeptical about Rishabh Pant’s selection: The former Indian captain has expressed doubts regarding the rookie cricketer.
The ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 is less than three months away now. The decreasing time-span has allured plentiful eyeballs towards the respective combinations of all the teams.
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With almost all teams playing their last or second-last series before the world event, it is the most apt time when the respective team managements will be zeroing in on their World Cup squads.
As far as the Indian team is concerned, there still are a couple of spots to be confirmed. Following the ongoing series against Australia, the Indian selectors will have a better idea of the same.
In a recent conversation with the reporters in Kolkata, former India captain Sourav Ganguly was vocal about several names who are the current topic of discussion among the Indian selectors.
Among one of those players is opening batsman Lokesh Rahul. While he was majorly out of form in the last year or so, a couple of recent impressive knocks in the T20I series have pressed his case.
While Ganguly was confident about the 26-year old cricketer, he hoped for him to score runs away from home. “I’ve been backing him. He has to score runs away from home. He’s a superb talent. He played superbly in the two T20Is,” Ganguly was quoted as saying.
Ganguly makes it sounds difficult for Pant and Karthik
Ganguly didn’t sound optimistic regarding the wicket-keeper batsman-duo of Rishabh Pant and Dinesh Karthik. While Pant hasn’t proved his mettle in limited-over formats, Karthik has been dropped for the series against Australia.
Sounding skeptical about Pant, Ganguly termed him more as a ‘player for the future’. “He has to fit in. I don’t know whether he would be able to fit in at this moment. So it depends. But he’s obviously a player for the future,” he said.
“Karthik is not part of the ODI squad then obviously they are not thinking of him as an option. It depends on what the selectors want,” he further said about Karthik.
“IPL is a different tournament”
Being asked about the ongoing debate about Indian Premier League performances affecting the World Cup selections, Ganguly opined that both the tournaments are different. “World Cup is how you play in the World Cup. It’s [IPL] a different tournament. You just play and move on to the World Cup,” Ganguly further added.
The 46-year old sounded excited about the 2019 World Cup. Citing the format of the tournament, Ganguly believed that it will be the strongest World Cup for everybody will play everybody. Ganguly also pointed out Sri Lanka’s recent victory against South Africa and hoped for the island nation to come good during the world event.
“It’s difficult to pick a winning recipe, you just have to play well. This will probably be the strongest World Cup because everybody plays everybody,” he said.
“A lot of strong teams this time. India, Australia England, West Indies, New Zealand, Pakistan play very well in England. After winning against South Africa, I hope Sri Lanka turn it around. It will be a good World Cup,” Ganguly concluded.
