T20 World Cup 2022: I still think opening the innings is where we could see the best of Rishabh Pant in T20s – Wasim Jaffer

Former Indian opener Wasim Jaffer suggested Rohit Sharma drop himself in the batting order and promote Rishabh Pant to the opening slot with KL Rahul. Jaffer recalled that former skipper MS Dhoni took a punt in promoting Rohit Sharma to the opening position in the 2013 Champions Trophy and the rest is history.

The former domestic giant wants Rohit Sharma to take the same risk and put his money on Rishabh Pant. In fact, the left-hander had opened in one of the T20 matches against England but he could not grab his chance.

Wasim Jaffer took to Twitter to share his thoughts as he wrote, “I still think opening the inns is where we could see the best of Pant in T20. Provided Rohit is ok to bat @ 4. MS took a punt on Rohit before CT in 2013, and the rest is history. Time for Rohit to take a punt on Pant. KL, Pant, VK, Rohit, Sky would be my top five.”

Pant hasn’t been able to get going in the shortest format of the game as he has scored 934 runs in 58 T20I matches at an average of 23.95 and a strike rate of 126.39.

However, as Ravindra Jadeja has been ruled out of the upcoming T20 World Cup 2022 due to a knee injury, Pant has been selected as the team would want a left-hander in the middle order. After Jadeja was ruled out, Pant played against Pakistan and Sri Lanka in the Asia Cup in the Super Four stage.

Meanwhile, Pant also has a good record in the Australian conditions as he has played some unbelievable knocks in the red-ball formats.

India has selected both Rishabh Pant and Dinesh Karthik in the T20 World Cup squad and it would be interesting to note who will be given preference in the final XI.