The newly appointed Indian captain Rishabh Pant seems to be far from his best these days. Pant, who was the vice captain of the Indian outfit was appointed as the skipper after KL Rahul was ruled out with a groin injury. The men in blue were hailed as the favorites and were expected to win the series comfortably. But little did anybody know what South Africa's intentions were. They brought their A-game to the table and now India is left reeling on 2-1 in the five-match T20I series.
Pant who has this reputation of playing brisk innings and taking the attack to the opposition missed out on this record in the 4th T20I, played in Rajkot. To many people's surprise, the skipper of the Delhi Capitals has misfired completely and it seems like the pressure of captaincy is weighing him down. He made his test debut in 2018 against England in Trent Bridge and since then he has hit 44 sixes. On the ODI front, Pant has hit 24 sixes since his debut against West Indies in 2018.
The wicketkeeper-batsman has a total of 31 sixes in T20Is. Pant had made his T20 debut in 2017 against England at the Chinnaswamy Stadium. As of now, Pant has a total of 99 international sixes. With just one six away from a century, it is expected that Pant will achieve this feat in the fifth and final T20I against South Africa which is scheduled to be played in Bengaluru.
Teams:
India (Playing XI): Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ishan Kishan, Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant(w/c), Hardik Pandya, Dinesh Karthik, Axar Patel, Harshal Patel, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Avesh Khan
South Africa (Playing XI): Temba Bavuma(c), Quinton de Kock(w), Rassie van der Dussen, David Miller, Heinrich Klaasen, Dwaine Pretorius, Keshav Maharaj, Marco Jansen, Lungi Ngidi, Tabraiz Shamsi, Anrich Nortje
