New Delhi, October 20: In a sport that delights in second-guessing its most gifted players, few cricketers have attracted as much advice — much of it contradictory — as Rishabh Pant. The wicketkeeper-batter's international career currently presents a study in contrasts. In Test cricket, he remains India's undisputed first choice behind the stumps, a proven match-winner with numbers that place him among the finest glovemen-batters the country has produced.
In limited-overs cricket, however, his stocks have fallen drastically, and he finds himself nowhere in India's 50-over plans as the team builds toward next year's ODI World Cup.
Into this debate has stepped the man who coached Pant through some of his most defining years. Former India head coach Ravi Shastri, in an interview with The Times of India, revealed that his consistent message to the left-hander has always been one thing, and one thing only: be smart.
"I've never told Pant anything other than this: be smart. He has immense ability and shouldn't change his natural game. Just remain aware of the match situation," Shastri said, distilling years of coaching conversations into a single sentence.
It is a position that sets Shastri apart from much of the commentary surrounding Pant. Many pundits and former cricketers feel the 27-year-old needs to fundamentally change his approach in white-ball cricket — to rein in the audacity, to bat with more caution, to become a more conventional limited-overs player. Shastri disagrees.
He is against the idea of Pant changing his natural game; he simply wants him to be smarter about reading match situations. The talent, in Shastri's view, is beyond question. What matters is judgment — knowing when the moment calls for aggression and when it calls for patience.
The advice has its roots in a relationship that goes back to the early days of Pant's international career. Former India fielding coach R. Sridhar has recalled how Shastri, early on, took the young keeper aside and told him to be patient rather than try to clear the field with every ball. "Take singles and let them come up," was the guidance — an instruction to build an innings rather than assault it from the first ball.
In another conversation, Shastri reportedly went the other way entirely, suggesting to the naturally innovative batter that he try "something more outrageous", like the reverse-sweep. It is advice that led to hundreds, a testament to a coaching philosophy that sought to expand Pant's range rather than narrow it.
Few moments illustrate why Shastri values Pant's character as much as his talent than the Manchester Test. Pant had already suffered a finger injury at Lord's earlier in the series, an injury severe enough that he could not keep wicket and Dhruv Jurel took over the gloves. Before the Manchester Test, Shastri had checked in with him, asking in Hindi, "how is the finger? Tuta toh nahi hai?"
— is it not broken? Pant's reply was characteristically defiant: "of course, I will play this game... broken or not, I'd still play."
Then came the moment that would define the match. A Chris Woakes delivery crashed into Pant's right foot, fracturing it. He retired hurt on 36, limping off the field, and it seemed his participation in the game was over.
But on Day 2, to the astonishment of players and spectators alike, Pant walked back out to bat — limping, taking baby steps while stealing singles, barely able to put weight on the injured foot. He fought his way to a much-needed half-century, an innings that will be remembered long after the scorecard is forgotten.
"For him to come back and do what he did was something special... that's what makes heroes," Shastri said of that innings, a coach's pride evident in the words.
The statistics underline why the former coach remains so convinced of Pant's worth in the longest format. In 44 Tests, Pant has scored 3,082 runs at an average of 43.40, with a strike rate of 73.69 that few wicketkeeper-batters in history can match. His seven Test centuries have taken him past MS Dhoni's six, making him India's most prolific century-maker among wicketkeeper-batters, and have drawn him level with Sri Lanka's Kumar Sangakkara among Asian keepers.
Five of those centuries have come in SENA conditions — South Africa, England, New Zealand and Australia — the most by any Asian batter, a record that speaks to his mastery of the toughest environments in world cricket. He has overtaken Rohit Sharma as India's leading six-hitter in ICC World Test Championship history, with 62 sixes in 35 matches against Rohit's 56 in 40 (Ben Stokes leads the all-time list with 83 in 54).
He is also only the second Indian wicketkeeper-batter after Dhoni to reach 3,000 Test runs.
Shastri also touched on the recent 209-run partnership between Pant and Shubman Gill in the first Test of the five-match series, saying he is happy for Pant given everything he has been through since the accident — a reference to the horrific car crash that threatened his career and the long, painful comeback journey that followed. That context colours everything about Pant's current story: every innings is played in the shadow of what he survived.
The interview ranged beyond Pant. Shastri said Jasprit Bumrah should not play all three formats, arguing that India's premier fast bowler must be managed carefully if he is to be at his peak for the biggest occasions. He backed India for the New Zealand tour starting October 22, 2026, saying he expects seam and swing conditions that will test the visitors — conditions that, incidentally, have historically brought out the best in Pant.
And he identified fielding as India's biggest concern, warning bluntly: "It has dipped alarmingly. To win major tournaments, the standards have to be much higher."
It is a wide-ranging assessment from a man who knows the Indian dressing room as well as anyone. But it is the Pant prescription that will resonate most with fans of the mercurial keeper. In an era when every young player is asked to fit a template, Shastri's counsel is refreshingly simple: keep the game that made you special, and play it with a smarter head. The ability is not in doubt. The judgment, he believes, will come.
For Pant, the stakes are clear. The Test whites remain his kingdom. The coloured clothing, for now, must wait — he is, by the account of the interview, nowhere in India's 50-over plans as the selectors build toward next year's ODI World Cup.
That is not a verdict on his ability, which Shastri insists is beyond question; it is a verdict on where the limited-overs setup currently stands and the direction it has chosen. The path back, in the former coach's telling, does not run through reinvention. It runs through the refinement of judgment: the same fearless cricketer, making better decisions, more often.
There is a quiet irony in the fact that the most adventurous batter of his generation is being asked, above all, to be smart. But Shastri's long view of Pant suggests the two qualities were never opposites. The reverse-sweep advice and the take-singles advice came from the same coach in the same period — evidence of a philosophy that treats audacity and awareness as partners rather than rivals.
The Manchester innings, played on a fractured foot, showed the courage. The half-centuries in SENA conditions showed the class. What the next phase of Pant's career must show, if the white-ball door is to reopen, is the judgment to choose the right weapon for the right moment.
And the man who coached him at his best believes the answer to reclaiming the limited-overs arena is not reinvention but refinement — the same fearless cricketer, making better decisions. Be smart. That is all.
(Reporting based on NDTV Sports and The Times of India.)