"There's no point in forcing him to play responsibly" - Virat Kohli's childhood coach on Rishabh Pant's role in Indian Test team

Former Delhi cricketer and Virat Kohli's childhood coach Rajkumar Sharma feels Team India should encourage Rishabh Pant to play his natural game and not burden him with responsibility in Tests.

The southpaw has struggled for form in white-ball cricket over the past few months. But as soon as he got his whites on, Rishabh Pant looked like a completely different player, smashing a fluent 46 against Bangladesh in Chattogram.

Speaking to India News, here's what Rajkumar Sharma had to say about Rishabh Pant's role in India's Test team:

"When Rishabh Pant's shots come off, people call him a match-winner. But when he is caught a couple of feet inside the boundary, people call him irresponsible. I feel when you have such a stroke player, you should take the chance and let him play his natural game. There's no point in forcing him to play responsibly. I just hope he takes more calculative risks because he is a senior player in the team now."

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Rajkumar Sharma hails Cheteshwar Pujara's contribution in India's win

Cheteshwar Pujara had a sensational game against Bangladesh, scoring 192 runs in two innings. He also scored his 19th Test hundred after a gap of almost four years and, more importantly, scored at a pace that the team wanted.

Rajkumar lauded Pujara for his selfless knock, stating:

"Pujara's role has always been to hold one end and let the other batters bat around him. However, he showed that when the team needed quick runs, he was ready to take on the opposition bowlers. This shows that he is a true team man and this is a sign of a great team that different players are ready to adapt according to the situation."

India's updated squad for 2nd Test against Bangladesh: KL Rahul (C), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara (VC), Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant (WK), KS Bharat (WK), Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Shardul Thakur, Mohd. Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Saurabh Kumar, Jaydev Unadkat.