Rohit Sharma trolls Pant for challenging him to a ‘six-hitting contest’

India vice-captain Rohit Sharma trolled his teammate Rishabh Pant for challenging the former to a six-hitting competition. Rohit and pacer Jasprit Bumrah were doing a joint Instagram Live session when the Pant threw the challenge.

As citizens stayed indoors amid a countrywide lockdown imposed to contain the spread of the coronavirus, celebrities are often reaching out to their fans and engaging them with pictures, videos and on occasion, live sessions.

In such a session on Instagram, Rohit and Jasprit were in conversation when young wicket-keeper batsman Pant decided to get in the mix and left a comment challenging the Mumbai Indians captain to the ‘biggest six-hitting competition’. Jasprit pointed this out to Rohit, who had the perfect response to it.

“Saala ek saal hua nahi usko cricket khelke chhake ka competition kar raha hai? (He wants to compete against me in a competition to hit sixes when it hasn’t even been a year since he started playing cricket?)” Rohit quipped. The swashbuckling batsman is often referred to as ‘hitman’ for slamming sixes, and has a strike rate of 88.92 in ODIs and 138.78 in T20Is. With 423 sixes, Rohit is third in the list of highest number of sixes in international cricket after West Indies’ Chris Gayle and former Pakistan all-rounder Shahid Afridi.

Rohit clearly thinks the young wicket-keeper batsman needs more time to be challenging senior cricketers and bigwigs in the sport. Pant made his debut in the Indian team in the T20 international against England in 2017. He, however, had to wait till 2018 to make the Test and ODI teams for India.

Meanwhile, Rohit’s session with Jasprit also ruffled some feathers as the former was irritated by a few suggesting that the duo speak in English. Responding to comments asking them to switch from Hindi to English, Rohit said, “We are Indians, we will only speak in Hindi.”

In the past, there have been instances leading to a furore over language imposition and refusal to acknowledge the non-Hindi speaking demographic. However, Rohit said that he would speak in English when he was giving interviews, but as he is at home, he will speak only in Hindi. Jasprit supported Rohit and said justified it by adding that when they speak in English, fans would complain and ask them to speak in Hindi anyway.

Before signing off, both cricketers urged citizens to take the COVID-19 threat seriously and stay at home. The Indian vice-captain donated Rs 80 lakh towards the fight against COVID-19.