Indian national cricket team wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant has begun his preparations for the upcoming Duleep Trophy 2024, which is set to begin on September 5. The tournament will also mark his return to red-ball cricket after more than a year.
Rishabh Pant played his last red-ball match in December 2022 against Bangladesh. However, after that, he met with a terrible accident and was later ruled out of cricket for more than a year. He missed crucial matches for India including the ICC World Cup Test Championship 2023 and the World Cup 2023 as well.
However, Rishabh Pant made his comeback for the Indian National Cricket Team in the 2024 T20 World Cup. He played a decent role for the team in the tournament and then also made his ODI comeback for the team in the last game of the three-match ODI series against the Sri Lanka National Cricket Team.
While Pant has returned to both formats, his grand return to Test cricket, which has been his best format, awaits him. The wicketkeeper-batsman was named in India’s B squad for the upcoming Duleep Trophy 2024, which will be key to his return to the Indian team.
Ahead of the Duleep Trophy, Rishabh Pant was seen getting into the rhythm for the tournament. The wicketkeeper-batsman posted a video on Instagram on Monday, training in the nets. The left-hander played some accurate shots and looked in good form ahead of the domestic circuit. He posted the video with the caption:
“I try not to have expectations because they can destroy you. I try to work as hard as I can and give 100 percent and keep learning from it.”
Rishabh Pant trains for Duleep Trophy 2024
Here is the video:
Rishabh Pant will be extremely crucial for the Indian National Cricket Team as the Test season is just around the corner. The team is scheduled to play 10 matches, five of which are against the Australian National Cricket Team and the rest against Bangladesh and New Zealand at home.
He will be a vital asset to the team in Australia. In the last two tours, he has been sensational for the team with the bat. In 2018-19, he scored a fantastic century in Sydney and was decent throughout the series with both bat and gloves.
However, his finest moment came in the 2020-21 series. The wicket-keeper batsman played an innings of 97 runs and helped India draw level. Sydney 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.
However, having returned from injury, he may not be the team’s first-choice wicket-keeper. In his absence, Ishan Kishan, KL Rahul and Dhruv Jurel made valuable contributions to the team. In total, Pant has scored 2,271 runs at an average of 43.67, including five centuries in 33 matches for India.
