Rishabh Pant, the 22-year-old wicketkeeper, worked on his bat swing and his technique with his club coach Tarak Sinha before the West Indies series. As per the ‘Times Of India’ report, he along with Tarak Sinha and mentor Devender Sharma focused on sessions of free hitting to clear Pant’s bat swing and balance.
Every cricketer goes through a phase where he/she must go back to his/her childhood coach or training center or club to re-ignite the spark that sometimes goes missing in the race to be the best in the international arena. Pant has had to go through turbulent times off-late and thus decided to hit the Sonnet club on the weekends after the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy Super-league matches.
The young sensation has been the talk of the town for quite some time now. He has already faced more than his fair share of fan’s wraths and un-due comparisons with MS Dhoni, his predecessor. The lack of faith in his style of play and lack of support from the home audience had made Pant’s thinking quite muddled and as a result, the confidence in the game decreased, making him susceptible to self-doubts.
Therefore, Pant had decided to squeeze 8 to 10 hours of training where he could primarily get his confidence back as well as start to enjoy his game more. However, the initial hour was not that easy. Since joining the Indian team he has had given a lot of time to his defensive game which hit his attacking instincts and instead started pre-meditating shots. After a brief net session, Pant decided to improve his attacking game.
According to Tarak Sinha, Pant’s focus on the cautious batting during his stint with the Indian team has fiddled his attacking mindset and was playing the balls half-heartedly. Moreover, his footwork was more pre-meditated and lacked intent.
“He always says he feels lighter when he comes to club. He would complain that he couldn’t get on with his shots. Everything seemed half-hearted. He would premeditate and plonk his front foot forward. He is all about confidence and it was taking a hit. Then he said he wanted to practice big shots. That freed him up and the bat swing was back.” Tarak said speaking to the Times of India.
Though they decided not to talk about the criticism Pant faced in his second stint, they did discuss the issues that have crept in Pant’s game. The coach further added “I told him people are blocking the on-side. His stance had opened up and he was dragging balls from outside the off-stump to the leg-side. He had to realize that he had to revive his off-side game”
Pant has surely been smart in this series by playing more on the offside and Tarak Sinha for sure is the happiest. As seen in the 1st ODI, he focused on playing both sides of the wicket and didn’t shy away from playing the audacious cover drives and lofted drives on the offside.
“The number of drives he has hit in this series is pleasing. He is opening up the field now. It is about showing his maturity and building on it now”, the coach expressed his feelings.
Earlier, Pant had started the series on a high by hitting the first ball for a six by bending on his left knee against West Indies in the first T20I in Hyderabad. Since then, the youngster has not looked back despite scoring a duck in the 3rd T20I in Mumbai.
Tarak Sinha runs the Sonnet Cricket Club in Delhi. Around 12 cricketers whom he had coached have gone on to play international cricket for India and more than 100 cricketers have gone on to play first-class cricket. He also received Dronacharya Award in 2018 from the Government of India.
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