One Of The Players To Watch At T20 World Cup: Ricky Ponting On India Star

Ricky Ponting was all praise for the young India star, saying that he’s “got the world at his feet”.

Rishabh Pant is currently leading Team India in the ongoing five-match T20I series against South Africa. In the first T20I played on Thursday at Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi, India suffered a seven-wicket loss even after posting 211/4 on the board. Pant had scored 29 runs off just 16 deliveries as he batted at No.4 position. Pant’s Delhi Capitals coach Ricky Ponting has now weighed in on where Pant should bat and why he can be utilised as a floater.

In the recently concluded IPL, Pant batted at No.4 or 5. In the entire tournament, the left-handed batter had a strike rate of over 151 and he was also the second-highest scorer for Delhi Capitals after David Warner.

“I reckon they’ll have him as a floater. They’ll have listed (him) at five in the batting line-up. But in certain situations, if they get to a stage where there are seven-eight overs to go and they’re one or two down, they’ll look to sending him in and giving him as much time as they can. He’s that dynamic, and that explosive. That’s certainly the way that I’ll try and use him,” said Ponting on ICC Review.

“He’s wonderful… talk about great people. He’s just an outstanding young man that’s got the world at his feet. He’ll be exceptionally dangerous for India, especially on the wickets we’ll prepare in Australia (for the T20 World Cup) – good, fast, flat, bouncy wickets. He’ll be one of the players to watch at the tournament for sure,” he further stated.

When asked how would he like to utilise Dinesh Karthik in the T20 side, Ponting said: “I would have him, and I’d have him in at that five or six role. The way that he finished games for RCB this year, he took his game to another level. When you look at the IPL, you want your better players to maybe be able to win two or three, maybe four games through the season. If you can get that out of them, it’s probably going to be a really good return. But Dinesh probably had a bigger impact on a lot of the games than most of the other RCB players did this year.”

“Virat (Kohli) having the year he’s had, Maxi (Glenn Maxwell) started the tournament really well… but DK was the one. And Faf too I guess, who kept the RCB bandwagon rolling. I’d be surprised if he’s not in their (India) line-up somewhere,” he added.