Pant on course for fourth Test

Manchester:  After a two-day break following the heart-breaking defeat at Lord’s, the Indian cricket team hit the ground running on Thursday at Beckenham, an hour’s drive from London. Barring KL Rahul, everyone turned up for the training session, where Rishabh Pant was the man in focus.

The vice-captain injured his left index finger while keeping during the first innings of the Lord’s Test, and although he batted, Dhruv Jurel donned the gloves for much of the match. Pant, who didn’t bat nor keep, just took part in the regular exercises, did a bit of running and played a game of foot volley. Assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate was optimistic of the 27-year-old recovering in time for the fourth Test that starts at Old Trafford in Manchester on July 23 but didn’t rule out playing him purely as a batter.

“He will bat in Manchester before the Test,” Doeschate told media persons after the training session. “I don’t think we are going to keep Rishabh out of the Test, no matter what. He batted with quite a lot of pain in the third Test, and it’s only going to get easier and easier on his finger. Keeping is obviously the last part of the process to make sure that he can keep.”   

“We don’t want to go through that again where we have to replace the keeper halfway through the innings. But he rested today. We’re just trying to give him a go as long as possible and hopefully he’s good to go in Manchester in the first training session. He (Jurel) is in the equation. Obviously, Rishabh’s fatigue, he plays the next Test and does both.”

India are trailing 1-2 and need to win or draw in Manchester to keep the series alive. However, Doeschate refused to say whether ace fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah — who has committed to playing only three Tests owing to workload — will play the crunch game. “No, we’ll make that call in Manchester. We know we’ve got him for one of the last two Tests. I think it’s pretty obvious the series is on the line now in Manchester, so there will be a leaning towards playing him.”

At Headingley and Lord’s what led to India’s defeat was losing wickets right before the intervals or in a clutch.  Doeschate admitted it to be a problem. “You’ve got to weigh up, is it more coincidence or is there a pattern of something we’re doing wrong? Are we losing concentration? Are we getting too excited to get in there? Are we getting complacent in the positions we are? And that’s very difficult to draw out a player. So it is something we’re mentioning. There have been a few times where you almost feel like it can’t happen again. I was throwing balls at the back at Lord’s when Rishabh got run out and it was incredulity.”