Pant a good enough batsman but needs to work on his wicket-keeping skills: MSK Prasad

Young Rishabh Pant’s defiant century in the fifth and final Test match at The Oval has impressed chairman of selectors MSK Prasad who wants the left-hander to pay attention to his wicket-keeping skills.

While his batting in the last Test match has drawn a lot of praise, his skills behind the stumps haven’t been good enough.

Although he notched up the unique record of becoming the only Indian wicket-keeper to have scored a century in England, his glovework behind the stumps have been nothing short of poor.

“I am really happy the way Rishabh batted in the last Test in England. In fact we never had any doubts about his batting skills. My only concern is about his wicket-keeping,’’ said Prasad, as quoted by PTI.

Being a wicket-keeper himself during his playing days, Prasad wants a module to he created for Pant wherein he gets to train his skills under a wicket-keeping coach.

“Now that he (Pant) has the experience of three Test matches under his belt, he would have understood the areas that he needs to work on.

‘’We are also trying to put him under wicket keeping specialist coach for some time. Along with Rishabh, we have identified a few more upcoming wicket-keepers who need to be trained under a specialist coach. I expect Rishabh to serve Indian cricket for a long time,’’ he added.

Admitting the fact that the performance of the Indian openers (barring Rahul’s 149 in the last Test) is a concern, Prasad showed consideration for the players saying that even the English openers failed to score big.

“Yes, it is definitely a cause of concern. If you look at it whenever we have got that good start we went on to win the Test match. Having said that openers of both the teams struggled in this series due to tough conditions,’’ he opined.

‘’After playing 160 Tests, a player of Alastair Cook’s calibre has failed throughout the series except for the last Test. In his interview, Cook openly said that this was one of the toughest conditions he played in his entire career.

‘’So we should be a bit more considerate about our players,’’ said Prasad.

He also assured that both Mayank Agarwal and Prithvi Shaw would get an opportunity after their superior performances at the domestic and India A level.

“Yes I do agree that Mayank Agarwal & Prithvi Shaw have been consistently performing well at domestic and India A levels. They will get their dues,” he said.