Indian cricket team's star wicket-keeper batsman Rishabh Pant, who made his debut in international cricket in 2017, has finally confirmed his place as a regular in national squad in all three formats after facing severe criticism over the years.
The 23-year-old is busy preparing for India's tour of England these days. Pant's childhood coach Tarak Sinha has been instrumental in grooming his career. Tarak, who runs the Sonnet Club in Delhi, has played an important role in guiding and training players like Shikhar Dhawan, Ashish Nehra and Akash Chopra.
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In an interview, Rishabh Pant's childhood coach Tarak Sinha told Cricketnext.com, "Once I got upset with him during one of the net sessions at my club Sonnet which is in South Delhi. He couldn’t sleep for the whole night and knocked on my door around 3:30 am! I live in Vaishali (National Capital Region) and which is almost an hour’s drive where he was staying in Delhi. I was like at this time? Why? He said that he wanted to apologise because he could never see me being upset. That was touching as well as disturbing since he had to make that journey post-midnight. In fact, my family was so upset with me that I was harsh on the kid."
When Tarak Sinha was asked about changes in Pant's game in the last 6 months, he said that the wicket-keeper batsman has always been mentally strong. Sinha also opined on whether he sees Pant as future captain of team India.
"It’s little too early to say that. Pant has to establish himself first more as a player. If you look at the iconic players like Dhoni and Virat Kohli, they had to do a lot before they got the captaincy. Similarly, Pant needs to grow as a player and then in future selectors can think about those things. He has done reasonably well for Delhi Capitals in IPL this year and has led Delhi Ranji team to final as well in the past. Not that he is intimidated by additional responsibility but as of now he is a kid and, still a long way to go before he can be seen as India captaincy material," added Sinha.