Rishabh Pant has been handed a stark ultimatum by former India spinner Amit Mishra: adapt your game or risk losing your place in the side. Despite being one of the most naturally gifted cricketers in the country, Pant’s habit of repeating dismissals with reckless shots has raised serious questions about his long-term future, particularly in the white-ball formats where he has barely featured for over a year.

Mishra’s blunt message: “You can’t call him a youngster anymore”

Speaking on the Men XP podcast, Amit Mishra warned that Pant—now 28 and in his eighth year of international cricket—can no longer hide behind youth or inexperience as an excuse for poor shot selection.

“I have very high expectations from Rishabh Pant. Given the kind of player he is, he will also have to modify his game. Now, you can’t really call him a youngster anymore—he has been in the team since 2018. That’s what I’m saying: after a certain point in time, it becomes very important to modify your game,” Mishra said.

He added: “The opposition teams are watching you closely. They are observing you, understanding your game, and planning against you—where you hit fast bowling, which balls you don’t attack, they notice everything. So you also need to be aware of that. You can’t keep saying, ‘I got out the same way again here.’ That’s something you must avoid.”

“Then you will get dropped”

Mishra issued an even sharper warning about Pant’s stubbornness in sticking to high-risk strokes regardless of pitch conditions or match situation:

“If a particular shot doesn’t work on a certain pitch, then don’t play it. You can’t insist on saying, ‘This is how I play, this is my game.’ Then go ahead and do it—you will do it for four or five matches more and eventually get dropped. You can’t expect it to work everywhere. You won’t get the same kind of wicket everywhere where you can keep hitting fours and sixes. At some places, you’ll get turning tracks; at others, there will be bounce or swing. How you handle those conditions—that’s up to you.”

The warning comes at a critical juncture in Pant’s career, with the wicketkeeper-batter currently active only in the Test format and frozen out of India’s white-ball plans.

White-ball exile: Over a year without an ODI or T20I

Pant has not played a white-ball international for India in more than a year, with his last ODI appearance coming over 12 months ago. He was excluded from the Asia Cup 2025 T20 squad, with selectors preferring Sanju Samson as the first-choice wicketkeeper-batter.

When India named their ODI squad for the series against South Africa in late 2025, Pant was overlooked for the captaincy role in Shubman Gill’s absence, with KL Rahul handed the reins instead.

A BCCI source explained the snub: “Rishabh wasn’t considered, as he has played only one ODI game in the last one year. The selectors expect that Shubman Gill’s neck injury will heal and he will be back against New Zealand.​

Pant’s white-ball struggles have been exacerbated by a dismal IPL 2025 campaign with Lucknow Super Giants, where he managed just 128 runs in 11 matches at an average of 15.1 and a strike rate of 99.01, including multiple single-digit scores.

Recent form and ongoing search for consistency

Even in the ongoing Vijay Hazare Trophy, Pant has shown glimpses of his talent but not the sustained consistency India’s selectors demand. He scored 70 off 61 balls for Delhi against Gujarat, but the team was restricted to 254/9.

After that match, Pant was seen spending an extra hour in the nets, working alone on his white-ball game—a sign that he is aware of the need to improve and regain a place in India’s limited-overs setup.

Former India batting coach Sanjay Bangar has also pointed out that Pant “has yet to totally understand the white-ball game” and has drifted away from his strongest scoring zone—down the ground—in favour of risky shots behind the wicket.

“A fabulous Test match batter, make no mistake about it, but here in this particular season, what I noticed is that he got out a number of times looking to play shots behind the wicket,” Bangar observed during IPL 2025.

The road ahead

At 28, Pant is at a crossroads. While he remains an automatic pick in Tests—where his counter-attacking innings in Australia, South Africa and England have cemented his legacy—his white-ball career is in danger of petering out unless he makes fundamental changes to his approach.

The talent is undeniable: a left-handed wicketkeeper-batter capable of match-winning knocks in all three formats is a rare commodity. But as Mishra bluntly put it, talent alone will not be enough if Pant continues to throw his wicket away with the same reckless strokes in the same situations.

If he wants to force his way back into India’s ODI and T20I sides—and justify his record-breaking ₹27 crore IPL 2025 auction price tag—Pant will need to show maturity, game awareness and the willingness to adapt that has been missing from his white-ball cricket in recent years.