‘You picked Dhruv Jurel and didn’t pick Rishabh Pant’- Aakash Chopra on Rishabh Pant’s exclusion from England series

‘You picked Dhruv Jurel and didn’t pick Rishabh Pant’- Aakash Chopra on Rishabh Pant’s exclusion from England series (Source: Twitter)

The India squad for the upcoming England series has been announced but some big names are missing from the 15. One of the names who will not be seen in the upcoming five-match T20I series is 2024 T20 World Cup winner Rishabh Pant.

The wicketkeeper batters picked ahead of Pant are Sanju Samson and Dhruv Jurel. Though Samson in his recent T20I ventures has performed well, especially in the last series in South Africa, the inclusion of Dhruv Jurel ahead of an experienced campaigner in Pant has got some experts scratching their heads. One of the experts who has shared his views on this decision is former India opener and commentator Aakash Chopra who is even questioning if Pant is a certainty in the upcoming ICC event as well.

“You picked Dhruv Jurel and didn’t pick Rishabh Pant. That’s an interesting one. It cannot happen that you are thinking Rishabh Pant is not capable of playing T20s, that he doesn’t do well in white-ball cricket. Are we going to take that call so early in somebody’s career?” said Chopra on his YouTube Channel.

“I feel Rishabh Pant is an asset. He is a generational talent. He is a player you should invest in. He might have been rested as he has come after playing a long series. However, his name is not certain for the Champions Trophy. Even if it is, it’s not certain in the XI. So you could have kept him with the team,” Chopra added.

Chopra on Dhruv Jurel

While speaking on Pant Chopra also shared some words about Jurel where he said that the 23-year-old prodigy has a lot of promise and potential bringing up his game against England in Ranchi and his performance in the practice game before the BGT but has also mentioned that he has still not shown a lot of performances in the shorter format.

“I love the kid. How well he bats. Temperament is absolutely outstanding. We saw in Ranchi that the guy has the might. He was playing his first match and gave a Player of the Match performance. He played the first match of BGT (2024-25) and I am not going to go deeper into it because anyone can get out in one match,” he said.

“He scored runs in the side game he played before that. He has got a lot of potential and promise. However, when we see T20 cricket, the third ‘P’, which is performance, hasn’t come yet. So you have picked him on total pure potential. He is a middle-order batter for sure but he is also going to warm the bench,” Chopra concluded.