Rishabh Pant scored 85 runs in India’s loss to South Africa in the second ODI on Friday.© AFP
India wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant on Friday said that the form of Bhuvneshwar Kumar is not a concern and everyone in the team knows about the quality the pacer has. Quinton de Kock (78) and Janneman Malan (91) rose to the occasion with the bat as South Africa defeated India by seven wickets in the second ODI to gain an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three-match series. For South Africa, Rassie van der Dussen and Aiden Markram remained unbeaten on 37 each. Bhuvneshwar conceded 67 runs in his eight overs in the second ODI and he did not end up picking even a single wicket.
“We are always looking to improve, I do not think there is much concern about Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s form, we are playing an ODI series after a long time so we are just getting used to the momentum. We are disappointed to lose the series but we are looking to learn from this,” said Pant while replying to an ANI query during a virtual press conference.
“Shardul batted well down the order in both the games, it is a positive for us. Venkatesh Iyer bowled for us today, there are a lot of positives that we can take from this series,” he added.
Earlier, Rishabh Pant and KL Rahul played knocks of 85 and 55 respectively as India posted 287/6 in the allotted twenty overs. Shardul Thakur and Ravichandran Ashwin also played handy unbeaten innings of 40 and 25 respectively. For the Proteas, Tabraiz Shamsi returned with two wickets.
“I think the track was slightly on the slow side. I thought we had enough runs on this wicket, in the last game, batting was difficult in the second innings as the wicket got slower and slower. Today, it was the same but South Africa batted well in the middle phase and hence they were able to chase down the target,” said Pant.
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“I and KL had a good partnership in the middle, if we would have carried on, we would have gotten 15-20 runs more to the total,” he added.
The third and final ODI will be played on Sunday in Cape Town.
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