Since his debut, back in 2004 MS Dhoni is such a name in World Cup who bagged all the wicket-keeping records under his name and did not give any chance to other wicket-keeper in India to come even closer to his skills. His records and stats are superb and tell all the story, what he has achieved in his carrier. His lighting fast stumpings are always ruthless against any batsman no matter how much fit he is, MS Dhoni makes him look very slow against his stumpings.
But, will these lighting fast stumpings, these superb wicket-keeping tactics behind the stumps will remain forever. A very straight forward answer to this question is a big NO, only because we all know that MS Dhoni is not going to play cricket forever. Then the question arises, who will take charge after him, who will do those lighting fast stumpings and will the legendary legacy of Mahendra Singh Dhoni be taken forward.
The very first answer comes to our mind for these questions, is a young, charming and a very talented young man from New Delhi, Rishabh Pant. This young lad has already a superb impression on world cricket and is considered as a rising superstar very soon.
In his young age, Rishabh showed immense power of hitting balls outside the park when he batted for India in U-19 World Cups. After this, he gained a spot in IPL where he continued to impress everyone with his batting skills. In the 38 matches he has played
till now, he has managed to get 1248 runs with a scintillating strike rate of 172+. After his consistent performance in the domestic circuit, he got the national call-in T20Is against England in 2017, then followed by his Test debut in Aug 2018 and ODI debut in Oct 2018. He haths performed reasonably well in the test cricket where he has several away centuries in his name, the performance in ODIS and T20Is are still under shadow where he has a poor average of 23+ and 19+ respectively.
Keeping in mind, MS Dhoni is not going to be the part of the Indian Cricket Team forever, Rishabh Pant is set to fill his boots as a wicket-keeper batsman. But, with these many chances given to him, he should be mature enough to be the responsible player and start winning matches for India. The answer to the question of whether Rishabh Pant is a dependable name or not lies in the future how he is going to play this IPL 2019 and later on.
