Rishabh Pant, who was criticised for his poor run with the bat in the T20I series against South Africa, slammed a fifty off 73 balls in a warm-up match ahead of the England Test at Grace Road on Friday. The 24-year-old was playing for county side Leicestershire, along with Cheteshwar Pujara, Prasidha Krishna and Jasprit Bumrah, against a Rohit Sharma-led side. 

Also read: Out or not? Virat Kohli left surprised after dismissal vs Leicestershire: Watch

Pant was batting on 71 runs off 83 balls at Lunch on Day 2. He smashed 13 boundaries and one maximum. He came out to bat when Leicestershire were 44/2 after 13 overs. The wicketkeeper-batter first made a 27-run partnership with Joey Evison. He was then involved in a 58-run stand with Rishi Patel. The county team were 204/6 after 45 overs, with Rishabh Pant and Roman Walker batting. 

Also read: MCC explains Henry Nicholls’ bizarre dismissal vs England. What is the law

During his innings, Pant was praised for a glorius cover-drive he hit against India teammate Mohammed Shami in the 27th over. 

Watch:

“What a drive. People think pant is just a slogger but he’s got good technique too,” a Twitter user said. 

“Insane how people were asking him to be dropped after his literally last test innings was a 100 in very difficult conditions,” another one tweeted. 

Also read: On this day: Reliving India’s 2013 ICC Champions Trophy final win

Rishabh Pant, who was made the Indian captain in the five-match T20I series against South Africa, was criticised for his poor form with the bat. Coming at No 4, he slammed a quickfire 16-ball 29 in the first T20I but then his next three scores read seven-ball five, eight-ball six, and 23-ball 17 respectively. The series was tied at 2-2 after the last match, in Bangalore, was abandoned due to rain. 

Last year, India’s all-format captain Rohit Sharma led the scoring charts for the country with 1,420 international runs in 35 innings. He was followed by Rishabh Pant, who scored 1,116 runs. Team India Test captain Virat Kohli came third with 964 runs, while KL Rahul scored 927 runs.