Pant set to keep wickets: Gambhir

Pune: Rishabh Pant has “no injury concerns” and is set to keep wickets for India while the team will decide on Jasprit Bumrah’s workload after the second Test against New Zealand starting here on Thursday, said head coach Gautam Gambhir. Pant copped a blow on the second day of the opening Test in Bengaluru and was replaced by Dhruv Jurel behind the wickets. Pant had a hit at the nets and also had a wicket-keeping drill with Gambhir. Gambhir said that Shubman Gill, who missed the Bengaluru Test due to stiffness in his neck, will play the match as the No. 3 batter has attained full match fitness. “Shubman Gill isn’t coming into the side, he was already there.”

Gambhir threw his weight behind under-fire batter KL Rahul, saying it’s the team management’s opinion that matters and not the criticism that he is facing on social media.

Rahul was dismissed for a duck in the first innings of the opening Test against New Zealand in Bengaluru and made 12 in the second essay as the hosts lost the game by eight wickets. But it appears Gambhir is ready to give him a long rope. “Social media does not matter one bit. What the team management and leadership group thinks is very important. He is batting really well, and had a decent knock in Kanpur (against Bangladesh on a difficult wicket,” Gambhir said.

Nevertheless, Sarfaraz Khan’s maiden hundred in the first Test has made the job more difficult for Rahul, and the Karnataka man will look to get his act right in the second match should he play. With India in a spot of bother, focus has undeniably been on the nature of the pitch here at the MCA Stadium here. It does not have grass cover and is composed of black soil to negate the bounce which New Zealand extracted in Bengaluru. . Preparing a rank turner could be one way out of the mire but it has backfired on India twice in the past.