Please Don't Hype Rishabh Pant!

Wicketkeeper-batsman Rishabh Pant has rewritten the history of another Indian cricket great Yuvraj Singh. No doubt about that, and cricketers and fans now call him the miracle player. While Yuvraj fought and conquered a rare form of cancer and made a brave comeback to cricket, Rishabh fought and conquered a near-fatal car accident in 2022 and made an astounding comeback to cricket in 2024. Not only did he come back but has been playing tremendous cricket in the IPL-2024 and then now in the first Test against Bangladesh with a superlative attacking century, apart from keeping wickets.

Amid the well-deserved international acclaim came the comparison with MS Dhoni--some cricketers saying he has broken Dhoni's record in terms of the number of Test centuries in less than half of the matches Dhoni took to score. Veteran wicketkeeper Dinesh Karthik has righteously pointed out that comparison with the legend is unwarranted at this stage. We fully endorse his view and request all to desist from hyping this terrific young player and just allow him to go on playing spectacular cricket on the field. Despite his achievements he's still a learner, in view of his tremendous potential for the future of cricket. Breaking a few records doesn't make one great, it's the test through the years that finally puts him/her in the top position. MS was not just a wicketkeeper, he was the Team India captain, establishing Indian cricket in the new aggressive order, the Finisher made India win many matches/Series and those invaluable knocks need not necessarily include tons. To be very specific, Pant will take much more time to match Dhoni's wicketkeeping abilities and reflexes. In short, such comparisons are totally not the need of the hour.

Besides, we have to examine what happened in the past. Rishabh had begun very well in 2017-18, particularly in the away Tests in England, and he was so overhyped that he got selected for Team India in the World Cup-2019 when a blazing Shikhar Dhawan unfortunately got injured, and despite India having the most experienced keeper-batsman-captain in the team. And what happened? The puzzled selectors had to look the other way as Team India happened to accumulate as many as four wicketkeepers in the playing eleven, leading to disastrous consequences.

Shortly afterwards when Dhoni cleared the way for the overhyped, the same began to falter on the field and the search for a wicketkeeper continued unabated. During 2021-22 Rishabh Pant roared back to form with incredible Test performances against Australia in Australia. And he got back to being hyped again in the media. What happened next? He nearly finished his cricket career in a car accident. That he's come back in full bloom, as we said earlier, makes him a great resilient spirited human being, and definitely not a subject for the hype.

Incredible, miraculous, performing human beings do emerge on earth, but their path is always fraught with dangers thanks to fellow beings' envy, jealousy, egos and of course, over-attention amounting to hype, because of all of which misfortunes keep on happening to them.

Therefore, leave Rishabh Pant alone with his aims and dreams, and allow him to go on mesmerizing us with his spectacular antics on the field, thus bringing glory to the country and to the beautiful game of cricket. We wish him a tremendous future ahead!