Why carry Pant to warm bench, DC co-owner Parth Jindal asks

Parth Jindal remarked that instead of staying in the reserves during the limited-overs leg of the New Zealand tour, Pant should have ideally played for India A against New Zealand A.

New Delhi: Parth Jindal, the director of JSW Sports and co-owner of IPL franchise Delhi Capitals, has questioned the exclusion of Rishabh Pant and Ravichandran Ashwin from India's limited-over teams. Jindal's comments are uncommon because IPL team owners usually refrain themselves from making comments on national selection matters.

Describing both of them as "X-factor" players in a series of tweets, Jindal said not playing Pant in the limited-overs leg of the New Zealand series "made no sense" while he failed to understand the "aversion" to a "wicket-taker" like Ashwin.

Pant, who has been under the scanner for his ordinary wicketkeeping skills and poor batting form, has not played for India since the first ODI against Australia in Mumbai when he suffered concussion. KL Rahul kept wicket when India took the field and since then, Pant has been on the bench for all nine of India's limited-overs matches across formats. Skipper Virat Kohli has already stated that India now favour Rahul, who has been in rich batting form, as the first-choice wicketkeeper in white-ball cricket.

Jindal remarked that instead of staying in the reserves during the limited-overs leg of the New Zealand tour, Pant should have ideally played for India A against New Zealand A. He also questioned why the visitors could not find a place for Pant in the final matches of the T20I and ODI series after India and New Zealand had won the respective series by then. "And why carry Rishabh Pant only for him to warm the bench? Surely he would have benefited from paying against New Zealand A or domestic cricket? To see a player as talented as him not play the 5th T20I and now the 3rd ODI makes no sense," tweeted Jindal on Wednesday.

While talking about Ashwin, who will be playing for Delhi Capitals in this IPL, Jindal said: "Don't know why Ravichandran Ashwin is not in this team! There seems to be an aversion to wicket takers! After white washing the kiwis in T20's the Kiwis showing India that the semi final victory in the World Cup was no fluke. India needs wicket takers and players with X factor."

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