Is Pant good enough to be played as a batsman in tests?

[zen]

In Ind cricket, players tend to get boxed. At times, we fail to ask questions that can unlock a player's potential and even given an edge to the team. 

 

Today's question: Is Pant good enough to play tests as a batsman? 

 

Pros

• Demonstrated ability as a batsman by hitting 2 test 100s esp. in Eng and Aus
• Adds a left hander in the line up 
• Scores very quickly (a big positive) so can take the game away from the other team in a session 
• The batsmen he competes for a place in the 11 are not great/special - Vihari, Shaw, and Rahane for e.g. (who are not necessarily in a higher tier/ceiling than Pant as batsman) 

 

Cons

• Needs to develop his game for swing (but many other Ind batsmen have similar issues) 

 

 

Edited December 16, 2020 by zen

[maniac]

No. Pant has not yet played a back to the wall knock or high pressure knock in tests yet.

 

As a keeper-bat he has a higher ceiling than an aging Saha who again is the best pure keeper in the world and has played some

clutch knocks may be not as glamorous as Pant’s. He had a higher ceiling because of his age, potential and glimpses of his talent.

 

He has done nothing get to jump in the pecking order as a pure bat over leave alone the current guys in the squad but all those youngsters scoring buckets of runs in domestics and A tours.

[zen]

5 minutes ago, maniac said:

No. Pant has not yet played a back to the wall knock or high pressure knock in tests yet.

 

 

Irrelevant (esp. since just starting a career)

 

Quote

 

 

He has done nothing get to jump in the pecking order as a pure bat over leave alone the current guys in the squad but all those youngsters scoring buckets of runs in domestics and A tours.

 

 

There is no pecking order (and neither have others guys played x, y or z in conditions a, b or c) .... Ranji Trophy #s can be a sham 

 

Please discuss based on merit and relevance 

Edited December 16, 2020 by zen

[maniac]

Just now, zen said:

 

Irrelevant  

 

 

There is no pecking order (and neither have these guys played x, y or z in conditions a, b or c) .... Ranji Trophy #s are a sham 

Just because the house especially a solid one has issues, you don’t demolish it. You continue to live in it and fix problems as we go along. You don’t pick players from domestics that causes anarchy. IPL is different as scouts look for freakish players who more often than not end up sucking in international long formats.

Not saying Pant is one though as he does have an impressive body of work in domestics and A tours.

 

Coming to the topic, not yet. Doesn’t have the body of work to play him as a pure bat. We tried that in LOIs which seemed a tailor made format for him and he didn’t do that well which caused him to lose his spot in the first place.

 

We have a potential ATG keeper-bat on our hands as a total package. Let’s not ruin his confidence.

[zen]

19 minutes ago, maniac said:

Just because the house especially a solid one has issues, you don’t demolish it. You continue to live in it and fix problems as we go along. You don’t pick players from domestics that causes anarchy. IPL is different as scouts look for freakish players who more often than not end up sucking in international long formats.

Not saying Pant is one though as he does have an impressive body of work in domestics and A tours.

 

Coming to the topic, not yet. Doesn’t have the body of work to play him as a pure bat. We tried that in LOIs which seemed a tailor made format for him and he didn’t do that well which caused him to lose his spot in the first place.

 

We have a potential ATG keeper-bat on our hands as a total package. Let’s not ruin his confidence.

 

Please discuss based on merit and relevance (not interested in the imaginary pecking order (no such list exists), domestic/tour A (big variances in quality), etc.  concepts esp. when performances at test level are available)

 

The question/topic is simple - Is Pant good enough to play as a batsman in tests? (can be answered by looking at Pant's potential and performances in tests and also looking at others)

Edited December 16, 2020 by zen

[Lone Wolf]

Nope as of now.  KLR also has a Ton in Australia & he is sitting out.  Also Gill is on the bench.  He can play only as a specialist keeper in my view. 

Edited December 16, 2020 by Lone Wolf

[Gollum]

If Rahane can play (and captain the side ) as a pure batsman why not Pant?

 

Look at their performance since Pant's debut? Rahane is one of the worst ever players against spin, no idea how he plays in SC conditions. In Eng/Aus Pant scored 2 more 100s than him. Rahane is 32 and has 7+ years of international experience....Pant is 23, inexperienced and a southpaw (which we lack) with much higher ceiling.

Edited December 16, 2020 by Gollum

[zen]

6 minutes ago, Gollum said:

If Rahane can play (and captain the side ) as a pure batsman why not Pant?

 

Look at their performance since Pant's debut? Rahane is one of the worst ever players against spin, no idea how he plays in SC conditions. In Eng/Aus Pant scored 2 more 100s than him. Rahane is 32 and has 7+ years of international experience....Pant is 23, inexperienced and a southpaw (which we lack) with much higher ceiling.

The first post that answers as per the topic! 

 

 

[Majestic]

14 minutes ago, Gollum said:

If Rahane can play (and captain the side ) as a pure batsman why not Pant?

 

Look at their performance since Pant's debut? Rahane is one of the worst ever players against spin, no idea how he plays in SC conditions. In Eng/Aus Pant scored 2 more 100s than him. Rahane is 32 and has 7+ years of international experience....Pant is 23, inexperienced and a southpaw (which we lack) with much higher ceiling.

Rahane averaged 50 in his first tour outside Asia and scored hundreds in every country in that tour with consistent performance. Pant in his first tour of England, Australia and New Zealand has hit two hundreds but he is averaging about 33 outside Asia which means that we need to also realise what else he has done aside of two hundreds and how much of relevance did those hundreds hold in the context of the game.

 

He does not have a single 60-70 aside of those two hundreds which could have been important in the context so let's not start comparing him with other specialist batsman who are averaging 40+ and have been around for a long time.

Edited December 16, 2020 by Majestic

[Gollum]

32 minutes ago, Majestic said:

Rahane averaged 50 in his first tour outside Asia and scored hundreds in every country in that tour with consistent performance.

2013-15 Rahane was a gun batsman, deserved to be a sure starter. 2016 till early 2018 noticeable decline but ok (grace period, lack of alternatives etc), after that a very steep decline. Should have been dropped after 2018 Eng, at least for his own sake. Dada after getting dropped improved, as did Sehwag after being dropped in 2007. 

Quote

Pant in his first tour of England, Australia and New Zealand has hit two hundreds but he is averaging about 33 outside Asia which means that we need to also realise what else he has done aside of two hundreds and how much of relevance did those hundreds hold in the context of the game.

 

He does not have a single 60-70 aside of those two hundreds which could have been important in the context so let's not start comparing him with other specialist batsman who are averaging 40+ and have been around for a long time.

Pant was a little kid, and playing as keeper-batsman, now keeping is the toughest job on the cricket field (tests) and takes a lot out of the batsman physically and mentally (at least fast bowlers can switch off or take a shower when not bowling, keeper must concentrate every ball plus 540 uthak baithaks per day). Just have to look at Sanga's record when he wasn't keeping, even Gilly (now Kock) was a much better batsmen than what the stats show, had he given up gloves like Sanga/BMac his actual batting worth would have definitely been reflected in relevant cricbuzz/cricinfo pages.

 

So both factors were working against Pant, age as well as rigors of test keeping (considering topic at hand). He will only mature, become a better innings builder with more experience, when he gets to face more varieties of conditions and match situations. His ability was shown in the 2 100s, came within an hour and a half of drawing the 5th test in Eng from a hopeless situation and helped his team pound Aus to submission and seal a historic series win. And I am sure he will do well in India, decent against spin (can't be worse than Rahane ). Just like Vihari his stats suffer due to playing almost all his cricket in Eng/Aus/NZ, 3/4 toughest places to tour for an SC batsman, especially a raw one. 

 

Answering OP's question, emphatic yes. Not like some 25 yo Viv or Smith is keeping him out of the XI.....even this unrefined version of Pant will walk in as pure batsman. And by God do we need a fearless, attacking batsman in the MO to make this good side a great side. Him being southpaw too helps, can't stack a XI with 11 RHBs, disaster waiting to happen. ATG WI, Aus, even Smith's RSA all had a good mix of both RHBs and LHBs. 

Edited December 16, 2020 by Gollum

[Serpico]

Oh it'll never work. Pant is more McCullum/Gilchrist type than Sanga/Flower. Without keeping, he'll not have the confidence to play his natural game. Hell even with keeping, people are not satisfied with his batting, he'll be on even shorter leash as a pure batsman

[zen]

12 minutes ago, Gollum said:

So both factors were working against Pant, age as well as rigors of test keeping. He will only mature, become a better innings builder with more experience, when he gets to face more varieties of conditions and match situations. His ability was shown in the 2 100s, came within an hour and a half of drawing the 5th test in Eng from a hopeless situation and helped his team pound Aus to submission and seal a historic series win. And I am sure he will do well in India, decent against spin (can't be worse than Rahane ). Just like Vihari his stats suffer due to playing almost all his cricket in Eng/Aus/NZ, 3/4 toughest places to tour for an SC batsman, especially a raw one. 

 

Answering OP's question, emphatic yes. Not like some 25 yo Viv or Smith is keeping him out of the XI.....even this unrefined version of Pant will walk in as pure batsman. And by God do we need a fearless, attacking batsman in the MO to make this good side a great side. Him being southpaw too helps, can't stack a XI with 11 RHBs, disaster waiting to happen. ATG WI, Aus, even Smith's RSA all had a good mix of both RHBs and LHBs. 

 

A very good post. Ind cricket may have failed to develop many talented cricketers because of its tendency to box cricketers 

 

The goal of the thread is to make people think outside such boxes 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Majestic]

40 minutes ago, Gollum said:

2013-15 Rahane was a gun batsman, deserved to be a sure starter. 2016 till early 2018 noticeable decline but ok (grace period, lack of alternatives etc), after that a very steep decline. Should have been dropped after 2018 Eng, at least for his own sake. Dada after getting dropped improved, as did Sehwag after being dropped in 2007. 

Pant was a little kid, and playing as keeper-batsman, now keeping is the toughest job on the cricket field (tests) and takes a lot out of the batsman physically and mentally (at least fast bowlers can switch off or take a shower when not bowling, keeper must concentrate every ball plus 540 uthak baithaks per day). Just have to look at Sanga's record when he wasn't keeping, even Gilly (now Kock) was a much better batsmen than what the stats show, had he given up gloves like Sanga/BMac his actual batting worth would have definitely been reflected in relevant cricbuzz/cricinfo pages.

 

So both factors were working against Pant, age as well as rigors of test keeping (considering topic at hand). He will only mature, become a better innings builder with more experience, when he gets to face more varieties of conditions and match situations. His ability was shown in the 2 100s, came within an hour and a half of drawing the 5th test in Eng from a hopeless situation and helped his team pound Aus to submission and seal a historic series win. And I am sure he will do well in India, decent against spin (can't be worse than Rahane ). Just like Vihari his stats suffer due to playing almost all his cricket in Eng/Aus/NZ, 3/4 toughest places to tour for an SC batsman, especially a raw one. 

 

Answering OP's question, emphatic yes. Not like some 25 yo Viv or Smith is keeping him out of the XI.....even this unrefined version of Pant will walk in as pure batsman. And by God do we need a fearless, attacking batsman in the MO to make this good side a great side. Him being southpaw too helps, can't stack a XI with 11 RHBs, disaster waiting to happen. ATG WI, Aus, even Smith's RSA all had a good mix of both RHBs and LHBs. 

I hope he does well and gets better with more experience but must mention that this thread has happened too early. Pandya had become worthy of a specialist batsman after being around for four years now. I think Pant will also take about similar time. But just like India need Pandya's bowling now, they will also need Pant's keeping then.

 

On Rahane, he batted very poorly in NZ tests early this year and I think this series will be important for him. Since Kohli is not available, he has got a default captain choice but this might bring out the best of him because even he would be knowing that under Kohli's absence, all the eyes would be on him specifically.

Edited December 16, 2020 by Majestic

[Gollum]

3 minutes ago, Majestic said:

On Rahane, he batted very poorly in NZ tests early this year and I think this series will be important for him. Since Kohli is not available, he has got a default captain choice but this might bring out the best of him because even he would be knowing that under Kohli's absence, all the eyes would be on him specifically.

Hope so. I am annoyed by selection (especially Saha over Pant) as well as presence of freeloading non-performers like Rahane but hope all our players do well. 

Edited December 16, 2020 by Gollum

[putrevus]

Rahane needs to perform in this series, he has been a passenger for so long.He has been putrid for so long.This guy becoming captain is a disgrace. A captain needs to earn his place in playing elevan, I don't think Rahane has done that in long time.

Edited December 16, 2020 by putrevus

[gattaca]

5 hours ago, zen said:

 

Irrelevant (esp. since just starting a career)

 

 

There is no pecking order (and neither have others guys played x, y or z in conditions a, b or c) .... Ranji Trophy #s can be a sham 

 

Please discuss based on merit and relevance 

Lol your dear Pujara was selected after his performance in Ranjis. While we there are IPL #s sham too ? Because lets boot pandya too. Ranji trophy has a history over 100 years. Lets respect that. I understand Australian commentators making fun of ranjis don't understand our own doing that.  

[zen]

1 hour ago, gattaca said:

Lol your dear Pujara was selected after his performance in Ranjis. While we there are IPL #s sham too ? Because lets boot pandya too. Ranji trophy has a history over 100 years. Lets respect that. I understand Australian commentators making fun of ranjis don't understand our own doing that.  

 

I do not rate quality of Ranji Trophy as high since quality gets spread across 38 teams esp. considering the “longer” format  (Ind can't even put a quality test 11 at times)  .... IPL, I rate it highly because quality players (Ind + international) are distributed among 8 teams. Shorter format allows more players to be competitive 

 

It appears that you have made some random connection based on the word "domestic" w/o even considering formats. Making an effort to understand the context could have saved you some time on your post

 

 

Edited December 16, 2020 by zen

[maniac]

4 hours ago, zen said:

 

A very good post. Ind cricket may have failed to develop many talented cricketers because of its tendency to box cricketers 

 

The goal of the thread is to make people think outside such boxes 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So let me ask you this who deserves more recognition Amol Mazumddar who scored a billion runs and  there was a spinner from Punjab who took a billion wickets (Cant recollect his name) in Ranjis, had the work ethic and put in efforts day in and day out or some freakish player who played a couple of IPL’s but didn’t have the temparament or the patience to last a full Ranji season?

 

India,Eng,Aus 3 countries with a concrete domestic system are the top 3 cricketing nations in the world for a reason.

 

What you are talking about are talent scouts etc picking unusual talents, that happens within the system, not outside of it and it has been happening and that is why we are getting all these cricketers in IPL and guess what BCCi reinvests their profits to further enhance our domestics. There is nothing wrong with our domestics. It has given us Sachin,Kohli and also Somasunder and Gandhi , that is not because the latter were poor players, some people just find the transition tough. It could happen to any youngster that we pin big hopes on. It has nothing to do with domestics.

[zen]

27 minutes ago, maniac said:

So let me ask you this who deserves more recognition Amol Mazumddar who scored a billion runs and  there was a spinner from Punjab who took a billion wickets (Cant recollect his name) in Ranjis, had the work ethic and put in efforts day in and day out or some freakish player who played a couple of IPL’s but didn’t have the temparament or the patience to last a full Ranji season?

 

 

Buddy, you talk about recognition and can't even recall the name of the spinner .... that sums up the quality of the tournament, along with the fact that Mazumdar is not considered international class 

 

Every profession has its work ethics. It is not unique to Ranji or cricketers 

 

 

Quote

India,Eng,Aus 3 countries with a concrete domestic system are the top 3 cricketing nations in the world for a reason.

 

There is no correlation with being a top cricketing nation and the quality of its domestic cricket. For a long time, Eng was not a great side. South Africa continues to be competitive despite losing players to Kolpak .... NZ and Pak were among the top 3 sides in the 80s 

 

 

 

Quote

What you are talking about are talent scouts etc picking unusual talents, that happens within the system, not outside of it and it has been happening and that is why we are getting all these cricketers in IPL and guess what BCCi reinvests their profits to further enhance our domestics. There is nothing wrong with our domestics. It has given us Sachin,Kohli and also Somasunder and Gandhi , that is not because the latter were poor players, some people just find the transition tough. It could happen to any youngster that we pin big hopes on. It has nothing to do with domestics.

 

Again BD domestic has given Sakib, Zim Andy Flowers and so on .... Sachin debuted at 16 w/o playing too much domestic cricket so he is an example of players coming through based on their talent

 

The point is that Ranji's cricket is low quality not that in low quality domestic tournaments, talented cricketers cannot pop up (All test sides have some quality players)

 

 

Edited December 16, 2020 by zen

[maniac]

3 minutes ago, zen said:

 

Buddy, you talk about recognition and can't even recall the name of the spinner .... that sums up the quality of the tournament, along with the fact that Mazumdar is not considered international class 

 

Even profession has its work ethics. It is not unique to Ranji or cricketers 

 

 

 

There is no correlation with being a top cricketing nation and domestic cricket. For a long time, Eng was not a great side. South Africa continues to be competitive despire losing players to Kolpak .... NZ and Pak were among the top 3 sides in the 80s 

 

 

 

Again BD domestic has given Sakib, Zim Andy Flowers and so on .... Sachin debuted at 16 w/o playing too much domestic cricket so he is an example of players coming through based on their talent

 

The point is that Ranji's cricket is low quality not that in low quality domestic tournaments, talented cricketers cannot pop up 

 

 

ranji is not the be all and end all for selections.

 

As you said Sachin was a once in a life time talent that couldn’t be ignored and was given a shot early .

 

guys like Kumble, Kambli, Azhar, A Jadeja etc were also fast tracked early even though they spent a couple more years more than Sachin.

 

on the other spectrum VVS was scoring tons of runs in domestics, Ganguly was a failure when he was fast tracked, had to go back and earn his stripes, also was from influential family so that helped too. That’s another angle of some corruption/nepotism too but greatest example of that thing turning out great since MAK Pataudi.

 

Dravid,Pujara were given a shot after performances in domestics that couldn’t be ignored.

 

Ravindra Jadeja was bossing domestics. He took some time to find his niche but there might have been others who we think as ordinary now but  may not have gotten the same chances.

 

Ishant, Virat, Rohit,Ashwin and to some extent Rahane  were also  fast tracked early in recent times.

 

Bumrah too was given a shot with limited domestic experience relatively speaking but again he stood out in shorter formats.

 

Pant, Gill etc and some of the above names were also u-19 superstars along with great domestic performances.

Vijay,Dhawan were also scoring tons of runs in domestics and stood out every year .

 

Now on the other extreme we saw some guys like Varun C, Dube, Natarajan and even SDP getting picked due to freakish talent ignoring their FC records or tenure.

 

Dhoni was actually picked on domestic stats. People who saw his batting style and keeping called him a hack. It was his Ranji and domestic stats that earned him his chances.

 

Indian cricket is not binary and that is good. lot of good and bad with every great organization.
 

So far it has been on an upward curve since 80’s so not sure again what your complain is?

 

Should lower tier teams improve their quality? Absolutely  they should. It happens organically. 
 

For that you need good admins with great integrity and intent but that still doesn’t get the job done.

 

you need $$$.  That comes from IPL and international broadcast rights. That money is disbursed to everyone and is reinvested.

 

As you can see now, people are coming in from remote and rural areas which means things are working. You can’t expect miracles overnight.