India cricket team head coach Gautam Gambhir was involved in a conversation with Rishabh Pant after the latter was stripped off vice-captaincy of the Test team ahead of the one-off game against Afghanistan. Pant, who was named as Shubman Gill’s deputy last year after the latter took over the reins from Rohit Sharma, was removed as the vice-captain after faring poorly in the series against England, and South Africa in 2025. As per reports, Gambhir has had a conversation with Pant as to how he must conduct himself as a senior in the one-off Test against AFG.
Rishabh Pant gets advice from Gambhir
Speaking at the pre-match press conference, India cricket team assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate revealed that he had overhead a conversation between Gambhir and Pant on Wednesday, where the former was explaining to the latter as to how he should conduct himself as a senior player. He backed the southpaw to play a good role as a model and a senior player. It is pertinent to point out that Rishabh has been replaced with KL Rahul as the vice-captain for the one-off Test against Afghanistan.
“I think he’s committed to playing a good role model and senior player. I actually heard him and Gauti (Gambhir’s nickname) having a chat around that yesterday. ‘How you want to conduct yourself as a senior player’, expanding to the communications or so, how you’re going to play,” Ten Doeschate said.
Pant played in 7 Tests in 2025, in which he scored 629 runs at an average of 48.38. This included 2 hundreds and 4 fifties. However, in the four innings that he played against South Africa, he registered scores of 27, 2, 7 and 13.
One of the main reasons behind the selectors losing confidence in Pant as the Test team vice-captain could be the southpaw’s lacklustre performance in IPL 2026. The LSG captain, who wasn’t a part of the T20 World Cup, returned to action in the cash-rich league. However, in 12 matches, he managed to score just 251 runs at an average of 27.88, and a highest score of an unbeaten 68-run knock. Besides, it looked like the leadership role was also taking a toll on Rishabh as LSG became the second side after the Mumbai Indians to be knocked out of the IPL 2026 playoffs race.
In fact, he did not impress the team management as the captain in the Test against South Africa in Subman Gill’s absence. In the IPL, he has often been criticised for his captaincy. The BCCI believes that if he is relieved of leadership duties, India can regain the aggressive Test batter who won the team some memorable matches.
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