Aakash Chopra has slammed the management for Rishabh Pant’s ODI treatment and questioned why he hasn’t been given a chance. Pant hasn’t played an ODI since the Sri Lanka series in 2024. He was part of the 2025 Champions Trophy-winning team but remained on the bench.
He retained his spot in 2025 and also travelled to Australia. Pant lost his place in the team for the home series against Afghanistan in June and he wasn’t named in the ODI team for the West Indies series either.
“It looks like the management has already made up their mind on his white-ball future. You do feel that it’s not fair. He has played only one ODI in three years. He was part of the 2025 Champions Trophy squad but did not play. Yet, the team won while he was warming the bench. There was an opportunity for him to play against South Africa, but they played Ruturaj Gaikwad in the middle order instead,” Chopra said on his YouTube channel.
“Now he has been dropped altogether from the ODI squad. He has also been stripped of vice-captaincy in Tests. So he has clearly been demoted. It seems unfair to me because he has not been given enough opportunities in ODIs to make up your mind. One match in three years is not good enough. Why did you keep him in the scheme of things if you felt he wasn’t good enough?” he added.
Interestingly, the selectors recalled Dhruv Jurel but kept Pant out. Jurel replaced Ishan Kishan, who is in Japan for the 2026 Asian Games. A regular member of the white-ball teams now, Kishan will make his ODI return for the New Zealand tour.
is now only part of the Test. He was a member of the 2024 T20 World Cup-winning team, but hasn’t played a T20I for more than two years. He was among the players rested for the home T20Is against England in 2025 and hasn’t been able to make his return since then.
Rishabh Pant’s ODI career
Rishabh Pant made his ODI debut against West Indies in 2018. He missed out on making it to the 2019 ODI World Cup team and was called up as an injury replacement. He has scored 871 runs in 31 ODIs he has played thus far. His tally includes one century and 5 fifties.