Rishabh Pant might have impressed English cricket legions with his outings on the round field. But in football, he might not pass muster as a goalkeeper as per former cricketers and pundits who set about making a Football XI out of the Indian contingent, in a light hearted way.
Stressing that he needed to be taller to be picked as a goalkeeper, Michael Vaughan said, “Rishabh is too small. You need long arms. I’ll go with Bumrah as goalkeeper.” Speaking on podcast Stick to Cricket alongside Ravi Shastri, Phil Tuffnell, Alastair Cook and David Lloyd, the pundits assigned him the Luke Shaw role. “Rishabh left back. He’s a little like Luke Shaw. Cocky,” Vaughan would say.
While the Indian team visited the Manchester United playing premises, a lot of chatter this week ahead of the fourth Test was about how glued in they are into Premiership football. Shastri said, “I don’t know who he supports but Kuldeep is a football buff.”
He would add that though he had done his knee in and was returning to India, Nitish Kumar Reddy was the perfect Right back. Vaughan reckoned Ravindra Jadeja would happily slot in at left wing in a 4-4-2, while Mohammed Siraj could be one of the two centre halves.
For the holding midfielders role, there was consensus on Vaughan’s suggestion that KL Rahul fit the bill the best. “Like Michael Carrick sees everything early .. technical and tactician.”
The English envy glistened through the grudging admiration for the Argentine footballer and the Indian opening nemesis in cricket. “No 10 – Jaiswal can be a little annoying but guaranteed like Messi ..” Vaughan would say.
Lloyd reckoned Shubman Gill was an overlap between a wiry centre forward and solidity of defender Matthijs de Ligt.
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For Beckham and his repeated curlers, Lloyd built up the suspense with his wrist drawing imaginary lines of the bending kicks before he settled on a most unlikely gamesake: Gautam Gambhir, the right midfielder. A laugh was had by all.
On the left midfield, Lloyd would anoint Morne Morkel, India’s bowling coach. “He’s the worst footballer I’ve ever seen,” he said. He might have dubbed him choker one foot, but Morkel has been quite the scourge for the Englishmen picking 79 wickets with a best of 5-75 in 19 matches.
