Sunil Gavaskar Hopes India Will Choose Rishabh Pant Ahead of Wriddhiman Saha in Adelaide Test

|| India Correspondent ||

While the Team India are looking forward to taking on Australia in the four-match Test series, former India captain turned commentator Sunil Gavaskar has said that the team management should play Rishabh Pant ahead of Wriddhiman Saha in the upcoming Test series due to his previous successful stint in Australia.

"It is going to be a tough one for the tour selection committee because Rishabh played in all the four Test matches two years ago and he also scored a hundred and he seemed to have got under the skin of some of the Aussie players with his chirping from behind the stumps. So I guess the team will probably look to have him," said Gavaskar during a virtual interaction with the media.

Notably, Pant starred with the bat in the second warm-up where he scored a 73-ball century in the second innings to stamp his authority. Gavaskar further said that since India's top-order batting looks unstable and they are not playing on India's slow and spin-friendly surfaces, the situation will force them to pick Pant.

"When you are playing on pitches where the wicketkeeper has to stand up to the stumps, where the ball turns around, that is when you tend to take your best wicketkeeper and in which case, Wriddhiman Saha would be the obvious choice. But here, India would be having pacers and you can stand behind and you get really more time to go for the catch. You get that much time 15 yards behind the stumps. My feeling is that they would go for him (Pant)," he said.

"Also because at the top of the order India is a little bit shaky. They don't know who they have to go with at the top. Mayank Agarwal is a certainty, but who are they going to send to open with him. Are they going to open with Shubman Gill, Prithvi Shaw? With that uncertainty at the top, they'd like to strengthen their batting and so Pant will play. I am hoping that he plays at No. 6 because that will allow you to pick five bowlers to try and get 20 Australian wickets," said the former captain.

Notably, Virat Kohli will play only the first Test as he will return home to stay with his wife Anushka Sharma for the birth of their first child in January 2021.