Rishabh Pant's girlfriend Isha Negi calls him 'The King' on Instagram

India might have lost the first ODI in Chennai against the West Indies by eight wickets, but one of the bright spots in the match for the hosts was the return to form of a struggling Rishabh Pant.

The wicketkeeper-batsman has been under pressure to fill the void left by the veteran Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who is on a sabbatical post Team India's semifinal exit in the ICC World Cup 2019. Pant had been criticised recently for throwing away his wicket, ordinary wicketkeeping skills and wrong DRS calls.

The 22-year-old finally managed to turn things around, scoring a vital 71 to guide India to a competitive total of 287/8. He shared a 114-run stand for the fourth wicket with Shreyas Iyer, who scored 71.

The heartening thing was that the Chennai crowd was heard chanting Pant's name. The Chepauk Stadium is home to the IPL franchise Chennai Super Kings, which is led by Dhoni.

It wasn't just the Chepauk crowd that was impressed by Pant's knock. His girlfriend Isha Negi took to Instagram to express her happiness with his return to form. She shared a graphic showing Pant and Iyer, with India's final score and their individual scores, captioned it as 'The king'.

Negi is an entrepreneur and an interior designer.

In January this year, Pant had shared a picture posted by his girlfriend Isha Negi, on Instagram. “My man, my soulmate, my best friend, the love of my life. @rishabpant” was how Negi captioned her picture with Pant. "I just want to make you happy because you are the reason I am so happy," the southpaw had written while sharing it on social media.

Recently, however, Pant was seen having a late-night dinner outing with actress Urvashi Rautela before the third T20I against the West Indies. The two were spotted together at Estella in Juhu at around 11pm, and it had led to speculations that Pant might be dating Rautela.

But, Negi's post seems to have laid to rest all such speculations for now.