"He could be the guy to replace Pant"- Kevin Pietersen picks an IPL star to replace Pant for coming International season

Last year, India dealt with several injuries to their key players, which affected the performance of the Men in Blue to some extent. Team India is currently missing Jasprit Bumrah and Shreyas Iyer due to injuries, while Rishabh Pant is out of action for at least a year.

The star wicketkeeper suffered a horrible accident in December 2022, which forced him to stay away from the game for the next year. He underwent knee ligament which ruled him out of the ongoing IPL season and he also missed the Border Gavaskar Trophy.

Though India replaced him with KS Bharat, who did the keeping in the BGT series but couldn't make an impact with the bat. With India playing in the World Test Championship Final, Asia Cup 2023 and the ODI World Cup 2023 coming up, India will looking for an ideal replacement.

Former English superstar Kevin Pietersen has named an Indian star wicketkeeper who can become an ideal replacement for Pant for the Indian team in the coming big events. Pietersen has picked Punjab Kings wicketkeeper Jitesh Sharma as his ideal replacment.

The former English star wrote in his column at Betway, "India have their Rishabh Pant replacement. Jitesh Sharma, the wicket-keeper from Punjab Kings, is also something special. I think he could be the guy who takes over from Rishabh Pant for India if Pant is out for a while longer. His 25 off seven balls, including four sixes, against Mumbai on Saturday was match-winning."

Jitesh made his IPL debut in 2022 for PBKS. Despite team's average performance, he was one of the positives in the team. He scored 234 runs in 10 innings at 29.25 and an excellent strike rate of 163.64.

This season as well, he has done a decent job coming down the order to bat. So far, he has scored 145 runs in seven innings at a strike rate of 149.48. His 7-ball 25 against Mumbai Indians in the last game, changed the course of the match.