Former Australian national cricket team player Matthew Hayden has heaped praise on Rishabh Pant ahead of the 2025 Border-Gavaskar Trophy. He said the Australian public loves the wicketkeeper-batsman for the way he played cricket in the last two tours.
Rishabh Pant was one of the main reasons behind the Indian National Cricket Team’s successful tour of Australia. The wicketkeeper-batsman played an attacking style of cricket on both tours and helped the team win two consecutive Test series in Australia.
In 2018-19, Rishabh Pant scored a fantastic century in Sydney and was decent throughout the series. But his best performance came in the 2020-21 series. The wicketkeeper-batsman did not start the series as Wridhhiman Saha was preferred ahead of him, but once he came back into the mix, he made a massive impact.
Rishabh Pant has pulled off two sensational knocks in two matches. In the Sydney Test, he played an innings of 97 runs and helped India draw the match. After that, in the next match, he played an unbeaten innings of 89 runs to help India chase down the target at Gabba and win the series.
Rishabh Pant will undoubtedly be crucial for his team this time around as well. The wicketkeeper-batsman who suffered the horrific accident is yet to return to Tests but will have the Duleep Trophy along with a couple of home Test series ahead of the series against Australia in November-December and January.
Matthew Hayden spoke about Rishabh Pant’s impact for India in the last series. He said that the wicketkeeper-batsman played an exciting brand of cricket. He believes that Southpaw along with Virat Kohli will be key for the team. Speaking to PTI during the CEAT Awards, he explained:
“Players like Rishabh Pant have muscle memory and a thirst for victory. He was a key player the last time he played there and the Australian public also adored him for the way he played.”
“It was exciting. It was innovative. It was just fresh and good. Then there are the old stewards like Virat Kohli who will want to make an impression again. From a batting point of view, I’m excited to see how India has that strategy to deal with Australian conditions,” Matthew Hayden said.
The best thing from an Indian perspective is that when you look at the last win, there was no Virat Kohli – Matthew Hayden
Matthew Hayden further mentioned that India won the last series without any big names. He believes that the Rohit Sharma-led team will maintain the confidence this time around. He explained:
“The best thing from an Indian perspective is that when you look at the last win, Virat Kohli was not there. There was a second bowling team that won at the Gabba.”
“That’s the kind of confidence you can expect this Indian unit to come to our shores with and say, ‘Guys, we’ve done this before and we’ve done it in an unbeatable manner, even without our key players,'” concluded Matthew Hayden.
