Irrespective of the outcome at Leeds, the pendulum swinging away from India’s grasp on the deciding day of the first opening Test (of what is a long India tour of England), one thing can be said for certain.
It’s that the very batter who’s often critiqued, even rubbished aside for batting in a “brash” manner, has done a great bit in giving the Indian bowlers something to bowl at and something to defend at Headingley.
Surely, while the recently appointed captain Shubman Gill and then the fiery Yashasvi Jaiswal led from the front and scored brilliant hundreds, Jaiswal in the first inning and Gill in the next, the one man who was the constant but unwavering symbol of genius for India was Rishabh Pant.
India lost the test but Pant was the winner of the contest, one who actually made it a contest long enough for bowlers of his side to persist on the fifth and final day of the game.
Rishabh Pant was at it in both innings with the bat.
Given the young keeper-batter’s current red hot form, it ought it be said, he’s just getting started.
Here’s some thought for consideration.
At times, the Test teams cannot put together with eleven contributing from the bat 252 runs on their own.
That’s batting together.
Happens to the best- doesn’t it?
A great example of this was the recent Lord’s-bound World Test Champjonship final where the eventual champions Proteas and Aussies struggled to even touch 250 on the scoreboard in the very first inning.
But here was Rishabh Pant.
Not at Lord’s but very much in England.
And he was constantly exciting, never dull and always so compelling.
He made 252 runs on his own.
Let that sink in.
Scoring a Test century in each of the First contest of the series, the Headingley Test, the “Spider-Man” of Indian Cricket – Rishabh Pant has made a world record.
He’s now the only wicket keeping batter in Test cricket from India to have hit twin centuries in a single or same test.
With scores of 134 and later, 118, Pant has not only lent a vital contribution to his team but made his hundreds at great strike rates- 75 in the first one and then, at 84.
Confident, courageous and one who believes in never-say-die idea in cricket here’s celebrating the rise of Pant, once again.
He now also holds the record for being the batter with most Test hundreds for team India.
When the left hander who is perhaps scared not even on the changing vagaries of time for it’s the present he lives in, made 134 in the first inning, he broke a record.
And that too, of a huge and timeless legend of Indian Cricket!
Only MS Dhoni prior to Pant had made 6 Test tons, Pant, courtesy his timely and brave 134, went past Dhoni and has, thus become, the only Indian wicketkeeper so far to hit 7 Test centuries. But
What’s more?
It’s taken Rishabh Pant no more than merely 44 Tests and that’s above it to score 3,200 runs.
Now, while that is impressive in its own way, what is further arresting about Rishabh Pant’s test career is the unabashedly impressive way in which he’s gone about scoring these runs.
For someone who’s nearly, if not yet, played 50 Test matches, Pant, the buoyant left hander’s strike rate is in touching distance of 75.
At times, especially under pressure, this is considered decent even in modern one day internationals particularly on low-scoring days.
But implicit in Pant’s arresting and constantly steady numbers is his approach to batting. You bring him the best bowler out in play and Rishabh Pant will even dance down the track to deposit the ball into the stands.
His batting stance may seem to come from a bit outside the second slip but he scores, eventually, at all sides of the park.
Utterly unafraid, seldom under self pressure and never really flustered by what’s happening around him.
In some ways, the Sehwag DNA in terms of the approach to batting is still very much around.
He calls himself “Spidey” and one could say, seconds the mythical rescue specialist from New York where it comes to pure agility; Rishabh Pant is as much a pure character unsullied by challenges as he’s an entertainer.
Albeit one who dances to his own tunes, never playing to the gallery!
India will take a pause and some moments with it to reflect on what’s just transpired at Headingley, where despite scoring five hundreds that came from the bats of four of its run makers, the visitors ended on the losing side.
But there was, after all, one big win for Team India. And it’s that their much loved and one-of-a-kind batter found lost form. So much so that he smashed records and made global news giving fans back home some vital points to gauge.
And that’s a moral victory.
Just that Rishabh Pant, who’s now truly in rich vein of form, mustn’t stop here at Headingley; he ought to take this newfound rhythm into the next game. And thereafter into the next Test. And continue.
Nothing else would suffice. Nothing else would do.
What do you reckon?