Former England captain Michael Vaughan once again raised questions about Rishabh Pant's exclusion from India's 2019 World Cup squad on Wednesday after the wicketkeeper batsman's match-winning knock for Delhi Capitals in the IPL 2019 Eliminator.
Pant hit five sixes during his 21-ball 49 and set up Delhi Capitals' two-wicket victory against Sunrisers Hyderabad in the IPL 2019 Eliminator.
Needing 34 from three overs, Pant showed brilliant game awareness to target Sunrisers' weakest link Basil Thampi, smashing him for 21 runs in the 18th over as he brought the game on even keel.
A six off Bhuvneshwar Kumar brought the equation down to five runs before Pant in his bid to finish the game was holed out with five required from seven balls.
And following his knock, Vaughan expressed his views on Twitter and suggested the selectors to rethink.
"How is @RishabPant777 not in the World Cup squad......Pretty sure #India still have time to change........ !!!!! #Bonkers #IPL19, Vaughan tweeted.
Pant's position has long been debated and it was settled when the World Cup squad was selected as the selectors decided to go with Dinesh Karthik ahead of the southpaw.
"The situation that was discussed among the selection committee is that one of them (Pant or Karthik) will play in the eleven only if MS (Dhoni) is injured. Under such situation, in crunch matches, who is the best guy who can handle pressure. That is the reason which went in favour of Karthik, otherwise Pant is full of talent, there is lot of time for him," India's chief selector MSK Prasad said during a media interaction after the squad was picked.
"It's unfortunate that he (Pant) missed out. If it is a crucial match, like a quarterfinal, semifinal, wicketkeeping also matters. That’s the reason why we went ahead with Karthik, otherwise Pant was almost there. Under pressure, we have seen Karthik finishing matches. That scored for him," he added.
However, Pant, who has scored 450 runs from 15 games so far in this year's IPL, can still make it to the squad if any of the current players are injured and needs to be replaced.
India squad for World Cup: Virat Kohli (C), Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Vijay Shankar, MS Dhoni, Kedar Jadhav, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Yuzvendra Chahal, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, KL Rahul, Dinesh Karthik
