"Too early to judge him; very integral part of our lineup" - Rahul Dravid fully backs Rishabh Pant after difficult IND vs SA series

Team India head coach Rahul Dravid has offered his complete backing to Rishabh Pant after a difficult T209I series as interim captain and batter against South Africa. Dravid feels one series is "too early" to judge the youngster's leadership skills and termed him a "very big part" of India's batting plans ahead of the T20 World Cup in Australia later this year.

Pant's captaincy was heavily criticized after India lost the first two games of the five-match series. The 24-year-old's inexperience showed in some of his bowling changes and on-field calls. But the hosts roared back to level the series at 2-2 following big wins in Vizag and Rajkot before rain washed out Sunday's decider in Bengaluru.

Dravid, speaking at the post-series press conference, termed the five matches as just another step in Pant's growth. The head coach also praised the left-hander for ensuring India's comeback.

He said:

"To bring the series from 0-2 down to level it with a chance to win in Bangalore is good. Look, captaincy is not only about the wins and losses and you can't do that. I think he's a young captain, he's learning all the time, he's growing as a leader [as] he's getting more and more opportunities. So yeah, it's too early to judge him. It's not something you want to do after one series or after a few games."

Dravid added:

"But it's nice to see he's got some opportunities to show that. He gets an opportunity to understand what it's like to lead, be able to bat and keep as well. So it's a lot of load of him and you know, it's a question of him also learning and gaining from that experience. But credit to him, he was able to work with the team and ensure we were able to go from 0-2 down to 2-all in the series which was really good."

Although content with sharing the trophy, Pant would have liked a few more runs under his belt. He could only score 58 runs from five games (he played just one ball in the fifth T20I before rain played spoilsport) at a dismal average of 14.50. His tendency to fall against wide slower ones emerged as a weakness.

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"Rishabh Pant remains an integral part of our batting lineup" - Rahul Dravid

Dravid staunchly defended Pant's batting as well. He explained that Team India are in the process of bringing out the left-hander's youthful aggression back, which might take some time.

Dravid said:

"When you are [batting] in the middle overs and you (the management) are asking people to play a slightly more attacking brand of cricket and looking to take the game on a little bit more, sometimes it's very hard to judge them based on two to three games. I thought he had a pretty good IPL. It might not have looked good on averages but I thought his strike rate was really good at the IPL and he looked to move that up a little bit to probably the numbers where he was three years ago. So we are trying to get those kind of numbers from him at the international level as well. That process might go wrong in a few games, but of course, he remains an integral part of our batting lineup."

He concluded by saying:

"We know what he does, the power he has, the fact that he's a left-hander is also important to us in that middle-overs and he has played some good knocks. Of course, we would have liked him to score a few more runs but it's not that concerning and for us, he's certainly very big part of our plans going ahead in the next few months."

Pant is facing stiff competition in the middle order from the likes of Suryakumar Yadav and the in the wicketkeeping department from Dinesh Karthik. It would be interesting to see how India can accommodate their different skills together in the playing XI.

The youngster, who will be rested for the upcoming tour of Ireland, will be back in action when India take on England in the rescheduled Test, starting on July 1.

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