Deep Dasgupta: “In my opinion, Rizwan is one of the top three wicketkeepers in the world. Quinton de Kock, KL Rahul, and Rizwan are the top wicketkeepers”
Image taken by: Bimal Mirwani
Former India cricketer Deep Dasgupta has included Pakistan star Mohammad Rizwan in his list of the top three wicketkeeper-batsmen in the world.
Rizwan has consistently scored runs for Pakistan in all three formats and has been their first-choice wicketkeeper in limited overs cricket.
Recently, he lost his spot in the playing XI in Test cricket to Sarfaraz Ahmed, but it is possible he could return as a specialist middle order batsman.
Regardless of this, Dasgupta rates the 31-year-old from Peshawar really highly and put him in his top three alongside South Africa’s Quinton de Kock and India’s Lokesh Rahul.
“In my opinion, Rizwan is one of the top three wicketkeepers in the world. Quinton de Kock, KL Rahul, and Rizwan are the top wicketkeepers,” he told Geo Super.
Rizwan recently represented Pakistan in the 2023 ICC Cricket World Cup and accumulated 395 runs in nine matches, which included a century and a fifty, at an average of 65.83.
The men in green started off with consecutive wins over the Netherlands and Sri Lanka before stumbling against India, Australia, Afghanistan and South Africa.
Despite ending their four-game skid with successive victories over Bangladesh and New Zealand, they still missed out on a spot in the semi-finals.
To add insult to injury, Pakistan lost their final group stage game against England by 93 runs.
Rizwan’s next assignment will be Pakistan’s three-match Test series against Australia, which starts on December 14 in Perth.
Pakistan Squad for Australia Test Series: Shan Masood (captain), Aamer Jamal, Abdullah Shafique, Abrar Ahmed, Babar Azam, Faheem Ashraf, Hasan Ali, Imam-ul-Haq, Khurram Shahzad, Mir Hamza, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Mohammad Wasim Jnr, Noman Ali, Saim Ayub, Salman Ali Agha, Sarfaraz Ahmed (wk), Saud Shakeel and Shaheen Shah Afridi