da cassino： It is popular these days to either bowl at him wide outside off or take pace off – or both – as he struggles to keep up with shortest format
da fazobetai： Shiva Jayaraman07-Sep-2022Very few who have followed Rishabh Pant’s career over the past few years would doubt his promise as a T20 batter. Experts marvel at his ability to hit even good balls for boundaries, and longingly wonder at the potential damage he could cause to the opposition he comes good.Fans gush over the bizarre shots he plays so often: the falling-over ramps and pulls, the one-handed hoicks over cover, and the one-legged lap against Obed McCoy recently against West Indies, among others. All these shots scream T20 cricket.And yet after a promising start to his T20 career, Pant has somehow failed to live up to expectations. Since September 2019, he has averaged a fraction over 29, and has struck at 127.39 in 78 T20 innings. In T20Is, his average drops to 24.48, while his strike rate too is no better.Related
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Pant’s T20 strike rate ranks 19th-lowest among those who have faced at least 1000 balls. There are 90 batters who have struck faster than Pant during this period.In the same period, among those who have played at least 50 T20 innings, there are 42 batters who average at least 30 while striking at 130 or better. Sanju Samson and Ishan Kishan, who are on the fringes of India’s T20 side, are among those; Dinesh Karthik, whom Pant replaced in the last two matches in the Asia Cup, averages 28.80 and strikes at 141.7.If there have been flashes of brilliance from Pant, they have been few and far between in recent years. Since September 2019, just 20 of Pant’s 78 innings have come at a strike rate of 150-plus. But 15 of those have been of under 20 balls. In each of these innings, Pant has come in to bat at No. 5 or earlier.Not surprisingly, Pant has just one Player-of-the-Match award from the 85 T20s he has played in the last three years. Only two other players have won as many – or no – awards having played more matches than Pant – Tim Seifert and Imad Wasim, who both have won one Player-of-the-Match award each from 90 and 101 matches, respectively.It is not as if Pant has managed to improve his scoring rates whenever he has settled in. He has played 35 innings of 20 or more balls, and only five of those have come at a strike rate of 150-plus. That is just 14.3% of those 35 innings. In T20s since September 2019, 118 batters have played 20 or more innings of 20-plus balls; just five of them have had a lower percentage of innings at a 150-plus strike rate.ESPNcricinfo LtdVirat Kohli and Kane Williamson, who are perceived to be slower are better at their starts, with corresponding percentage figures at 18.4% and 18.5%, respectively. In fact, Pant’s strike rate in the 35 innings in which he has played 20 or more balls in just 123.50, the fourth-lowest among those 118 batters.For all his outrageous ramps against the likes of James Anderson, and across-the-line swipes against Nathan Lyon, Pant has scored a significant share of his Test runs through