India’s batting coach Vikram Rathour opened up about the batting slot at which Rishabh Pant can be utilised the most as a batsman by the team. Vikram Rathour feels that Rishabh Pant can be most useful in the middle order or lower order of the batting line-up but depends on what team needs.

India’s batting coach Vikram Rathour talked about Rishabh Pant‘s batting slot. After experimenting with Rishabh Pant as an opener in the second One Day International (ODI) against West Indies, fans as well experts have been intrigued if Rishabh Pant might open the innings again in the T20I series with regular opening batsman KL Rahul being ruled out due to an injury.

During an interview with ANI, Vikram Rathour was asked about the changes that can be made to the batting order for the T20I series against West Indies to which he said, “We haven’t really decided that yet, we still have a couple of days to go. We had a travel day and rest day, so today we have our first practice day, once we get to look at the wicket and the kind of surface we are playing, we’ll then see, we have options available, KL is out I understand, we have Ishan and Ruturaj in the mix, so we will see”. 

He further added that Rishabh Pant is suited better in the middle-order or lower-middle order.

“Rishabh is a fantastic player, he can play good cricket up the order but it depends what the team needs and what we are looking at, but we can utilise him more precisely in the middle order or lower order,” Rathour added.

India will face West Indies in Kolkata at the Eden Gardens for the first T20I on February 16.