As the Indian team gears up for the third Test at the Lord’s, their batting coach Sitanshu Kotak hailed the performance of their two mainstays — newly-appointed skipper Shubman Gill and wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant.
Both Gill and Pant have played vital roles in India’s success so far in the series. Kotak credited Pant’s risk-and-reward style of play and emphasised the importance of having players in the team who can shift the momentum and turn the tide. Pant has scored hundreds in both innings of the Leeds Test and has also shared a vital partnership with Gill in the second Test. He has taken on the bowling in a very aggressive manner.
“Every team will have some aggressive players who are very good at breaking the opposition’s momentum. So, someone like Jaiswal, who plays the way he plays; someone like Rishabh,” said Sitanshu.
“But that does not mean that he doesn’t think. He does think, he does make decisions, and when it goes wrong, it looks bad. But when it goes right, people are happy saying, ‘Oh, what an entertaining innings that was’. So any team, I would think that would have a couple of players who are a little different in a batting lineup than others,” said Kotak.
Kotak dismissed the notion that Pant was an intuitive player, which is apparent in his risky shot selection.
“Rishabh actually talks a lot about what he does with the bat, when he does, why he does it with me. He is someone who doesn’t like talking too much during his inning because he feels that that changes his mindset, and he takes the wrong decision,” Kotak added.
Pant is currently the third-highest run-scorer in the series with 342 runs, including two centuries. Gill leads the batting chart for India. He started the series with his maiden century in England and as captain in the first Test before hammering a double hundred and a 150 in the second innings at Edgbaston.
The turnaround in his batting form came after he could manage only 93 runs in five innings in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series in Australia a few months back.
“I don’t think anything has changed because he is a captain. His mindset has shifted a bit and there are definitely technical changes, which I saw in Australia, series in India, and during our initial practice match here,” Kotak emphasised.
“It’s more of a change in mindset than technical, which every batter does without saying much.”
“He is in a mindset where he wants to give little time to the wicket. As I said before, his skill is such that he can convert any loose ball into a boundary.”
Kotak said the Lord’s pitch, due to the visible grass covering, is likely to favour the bowlers and will be more challenging to bat on than the ones in the two previous Tests.
“The wicket is a bit greener than what we saw in the last two games. However, we can only talk after they do the last cutting before the match,” said Kotak. “And generally, at Lord’s, the scores of the first and second innings are comparatively low. So, we can expect that it will be helpful for bowlers.
“For batters, spending time on the wickets is the best friend you can have. The more time you spend on the wicket, the more you will adjust to it,” he said.
