West Indies tour a great opportunity for Pant to unleash his potential: Kohli

The time has come for Rishabh Pant to "unleash" his rich potential in all three formats, said India captain Virat Kohli ahead of the first T20 international against the West Indies here on Saturday.

With little clarity over the future of veteran M S Dhoni, Pant has now become the preferred choice in all three formats and that was pointed out by chief selector MSK Prasad after the selection panel picked the squads for the West Indies tour.

"It's a great opportunity for someone like Rishabh Pant to really play a lot of international cricket, show his credentials, really unleash his potential at this stage," Kohli said here on Friday.

"We know how much ability he has and we all want him to become a consistent performer for the Indian cricket team. MS Dhoni's experience is always going to be a very crucial factor but having said that some of these younger guys have a great opportunity ahead of them and they should just look forward to it."
"So we are quite okay with what happened in the World Cup. Yesterday the fielding session and the little bit of time we spent on the field was really good. Everyone was excited, looking forward to just playing, just being on the field again. I think that's the best thing you can do as a team, just get on the park as soon as possible."
"We haven't seen the pitch, we haven't seen anything apart from the covers on the pitch. When we play tomorrow, we can assess how the pitch has come along. Even last time we played, it was pretty good, high-scoring, and we all had a lot of fun playing here, and this time is going to be no different."
"You see 15,000-20,000 people going to a place to watch something, obviously it should be important. Hopefully in years to come, people will have more interest. Local people in America as well, not just the Asian community or the West Indian community but the whole community in general will have more interest in the sport."