Last time India toured Australia, Rishabh Pant made quite an impression. His verbal antics were captured by the stump mic and broadcasted to the world by an adventurous host broadcaster while his explosive batting in the final Test showed why he was rated so highly by Indian cricket watchers.
Pant seemed to have reached superstardom at the time. But since then, he has fallen on slightly hard times. His performance in both limited-overs cricket and Test cricket tapered off and this brought Wriddhiman Saha back into the Test team.
Now, as India approach the first Test against Australia at Adelaide, they are once again faced with the choice of whether to pick Pant or Saha. Pant blazed away to an exciting hundred in the second practice game against Australia A. This solidified his claim to the wicketkeeper's spot.
But that's not the only advantage he has. Saha has been a brilliant wicketkeeper and a very useful batsman for India in Test cricket over the years. But his dogged style of batting is not as glamorous in cricket as Pant's free-flowing strokeplay. Sadly, in Indian cricket circles these days, looks often seem to matter more than substance.
The whole fanfare surrounding Pant completely obscured the great service rendered by Saha in the most difficult of circumstances. In 2016, when India were in serious danger of collapsing to a low first-innings score in a Test against West Indies at Barbados, it was the unassuming but gritty Saha who bailed India out of trouble, along with Ravichandran Ashwin. He did that in conditions where the bowlers had plenty on offer.
Similarly, later that year, in a home Test against New Zealand, Saha came up with, in his own view, his best performance with the bat. He scored fifties in each innings of a game where bowler-friendly conditions had put India in trouble again.
Such efforts are easily forgotten while the eye-catching big hits of Pant are drooled over constantly by fans and experts alike. The same thing is happening again. People are raving about the fireworks Pant produced in the second practice match. But nobody is talking about the invaluable half-century Saha scored in the first practice match.
In that game, India were in trouble in their second innings and were reduced, at one stage, to 143/9. Australia A had a first innings lead of 59, meaning they were tantalisingly close to getting a great chance of winning. Here, it was the understated and non-flamboyant Saha who, by scoring an unbeaten half-century, got India to safety.
But nobody is talking about this brilliant performance of Saha. Instead, the century by Pant, against a bowling attack that seemed to have lost all interest and was merely going through their motions, may well earn the left-hander a spot in the Indian team.
Pant does have a good record in Test cricket and has scored hundreds in England and Australia. But one must remember the circumstances and conditions in which those tons came. The pitches were flat and the opposition, at least during the latter hundred, was flat and deflated. Saha, in contrast, has produced his best performances when his team was in choppy waters.
And amidst all this talk of batting, it is often forgotten that Saha is a way better keeper than Pant. While the latter is a chatterbox, again something that makes him more appealing to the audience, the latter is very reliable with his glovework.
Unfortunately, the obsession with 'positive' batting, something that once led India to drop Cheteshwar Pujara in favour of Rohit Sharma, has been a trait of Ravi Shastri and Virat Kohli's leadership. This may tilt the scales in favour of Pant for the first Test.
If that happens, it would be unfair on Saha, and a bad example for budding cricketers also. Substance is always more important than style. But in times of IPL-centered analysis, people don't always recognise that.
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