Rishabh Pant has been cleared by the BCCI medical team and left for New Zealand early on Thursday, ANI reported, citing ESPNcricinfo. He joins India’s Test squad in Wellington on Friday, six days before the first Test.
It settles the biggest selection question of the tour, at least on paper. Pant has not played since he strained his side in the Irani Cup in early October, so the question now is how ready he is, not whether he travels.
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Key points
- The BCCI medical team has cleared Rishabh Pant after the side strain he suffered while captaining Rest of India in the Irani Cup (1 to 4 October)
- Pant left for New Zealand early on Thursday and joins the Test squad in Wellington on Friday, along with Shubman Gill, KL Rahul and Anshul Kamboj
- The first Test starts at the Basin Reserve on 19 November; Pant will go into it without a competitive game for 46 days
Five weeks in Bengaluru
Pant was hurt while captaining Rest of India in Srinagar from 1 to 4 October. He started rehab at the BCCI Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru on 23 October and failed his first fitness assessment there at the start of November.
The medical team then extended his stay to get a fuller read on his fitness, which cost him all three of India A’s four-day games against New Zealand A, including the last one in Lincoln from 7 to 10 November that he had been due to fly out for, CricTracker reported. His places in the Test squad and the India A squad were both subject to that clearance.
No match for 46 days
If Pant plays at the Basin Reserve on 19 November, it will be 46 days since his last competitive game. He will have had less than a week of training with the squad to get used to New Zealand’s pace and bounce, and none of the red-ball match time that the India A games gave his team-mates.
That is the case for Dhruv Jurel. He kept wicket for India A while Pant was out, captained the side and is already in the Test squad. India now have to choose between their first-choice keeper coming in cold and a deputy with recent runs in these conditions.
Pant will link up in Wellington with captain Shubman Gill, KL Rahul and Anshul Kamboj, who left the ODI squad after the washed-out third game in Hamilton to prepare for the Tests. The rest of the ODI group, led by Shreyas Iyer, plays the fourth ODI at Bay Oval on Friday.
What happens next
The first Test starts at the Basin Reserve on 19 November, and the second in Christchurch from 27 November. No warm-up game for Pant has been announced, so his first match since October may well be the Test itself.
Market watch
- Fitness clearance is not the same as selection. Until India name their XI, prices that assume Pant keeps wicket in Wellington carry some risk.
- If he plays, Pant’s batting markets deserve some caution: he has not faced a ball in a match since 4 October.
- Jurel’s run lines depend entirely on the XI. If Pant is fit, India would have to fit Jurel in as a batter to keep him.
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Pradeep Singh
Pradeep Singh is a cricket betting expert with 17+ years of experience. His work is in The Times of India, Hindustan Dainik, and Dainik Bhaskar, covering cricket betting and gambling news.
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