Rishabh Pant: From almost an enigma to audacious match-winner
Rishabh Pant had an average season with the bat in the last season of the Indian Premier League and appeared as a batsman lacking clarity on how to go about his batting. He looked like getting stuck in the ways of balancing his aggression as per match situations, something that resulted in a return of 343 runs from 14 games with just a single half-century.
An injury compounded his crisis, and lack of consistent runs saw him facing the axe from the limited-overs series on the tour of Australia. But thanks to the stellar records with the bat on away tours, he retained his place in the Test team. By the end of the IPL last year, the journey of Rishabh Pant from a flamboyant batsman to an enigma was almost complete.
His wicketkeeping was never the strong forte and hence with a lacklustre run of form leading up to the Test series, India could not risk playing him in a high stake clash in the Day-Night Test against Australia. The team management could not trust Pant’s form with the bat, and with wicketkeeping already in doubt, Kohli-Shastri opted for assurance over flamboyance in the first game of the series. Wriddhiman Saha was chosen ahead of the left arm dasher.
Despite Pant’s belligerence in the second warm-up game, he was overlooked, for the reliability of Saha. The lack of risk appetite must have been triggered by the thought that the Day-Night Test was their best chance to defeat the hosts Australia before Kohli was to return home. Add to that India’s impressive fast bowling trio and you might yourself argue that Saha assurance against the moving pink ball would have been the right way to go.
Whatever it be, the move to say the least, was divisive.
But, when their best chance was blown away by their worst possible batting performance in Adelaide and Kohli returning home, India had nothing to lose. An enigmatic Pant was trusted to energise the batting order. His impact on the batting was telling as he allowed Ajinkya Rahane to break through his shackles on the second day of the Boxing Day Test. Although Pant failed to convert a good start, he provided an impetus to help India reach the driving seat in the game.
While Rahane led a fairytale comeback for the Indian team at the MCG, Australia once again put them in a spot owing to a magnificent Steve Smith ton. The batting from the visitors could not rise to the occasion once again, and it was all down to the herculean task of saving the game on the final day against the quartet of Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon. For all the consistency Hazlewood and Cummins bowled in the series, the onus was on Lyon to win the game for his side on a fifth-day pitch at the SCG.
Pant’s entry in the final day of the game was a recipe for disaster. Forced to come in early after Rahane’s departure Pant faced a two-pronged task. One, to judge his pace against a mountainous target, second and the more important one, to negotiate an attack that was raring to go at an enigma like him. He had appeared cluttered in his head about attacking or defending and the situation was tailor-made for him to fail.
What followed in the next three hours was the burying of all doubts and frustrations for both fans and Pant himself. He buried the ghost of being indecisive and decided to take the game to the Australian camp and the onslaught began against Lyon who was to be the man for Australia.
At a point in the game, one flighted delivery on stumps was hit over mid-on, while another pushed outside off was sent straight back past the bowler. Lyon was smart and also had the cushion of a lot of runs to be afraid of a counter-attack, but Pant was braver, and also smarter than him. He cleared his head of all doubts about his own approach and the way to go forward for the team. He probably conceded that defending Lyon from the crease won’t make life easier for him on the final day as he had already edged twice, but luckily Australia skipper Tim Paine allowed him second and third life to redeem himself. Probably in his mind, what others call risky shots, are the conventional ways of playing. He left Lyon and Paine bewildered with his approach before the same turned its back on him forcing him to miss yet another deserving century.
The innings was timely for him as he had struggled with gloves behind the wicket, dropping as many as two catches on the very first day of the game. What began as frustrating displays of wicketkeeping on day 1 was capped off in a remarkable manner with the bat for him, as India defended their way to live another day in the historic Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
The Sydney Test worked as redemption for Pant with the bat, but a series was to be won Down Under.
India were reduced to a second-string team with the management being forced to opt for players who originally were brought in for training purposes; at a venue where Australia had faced their last loss when Sachin Tendulkar was yet to make his debut.
Each Indian bowler punched above their weight to bring the tourists into a position of drawing the series and retaining the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. The best-predicted outcome at the ‘Fortress Gabba’ was a draw, that too if India could bat as well as they did in Sydney.
The pitch, however, was much more challenging and defending for a whole day required more than what it took at the SCG.
But, India were buoyant in their approach and they could dare to dream. They could dare to take the game to the opposition in the wake of a series at stake and that too without their best batsman, Virat Kohli.
India’s batting effort, which the outside world thought would be a desperate effort to block 588 balls, began as a chase. One of the newest emerging talents of Indian Cricket—Shubman Gill dared to take the mighty Starc and Cummins on.
The prize, if India could win the game, was worth the risk of a loss and squandering the series they fought so hard for, at least in the eyes of players and the team management. However, India began losing wickets and could well have opted for the defence to save the game. But once again, the man on the crease was Rishabh Pant for whom being risky came naturally, and started taking on bowlers just when Australia would have hoped for a ‘sensible and defensive’ approach from India. However, Tim Paine’s Australia were known to this script after the last Test at the SCG.
Lyon was turning the ball and the cracks were helping all Australian bowlers. When Lyon turned one square past Pant’s bat, Shane Warne giggled in the Fox Cricket commentary box wondering if Pant will have the courage to go down the track against the ‘GOAT’. Little did Warne know that Pant was just not the run of mill kinda guy. Not only did Pant dance down the track, but he deposited the very next ball for a huge six over long-on.
Fuller balls from Cummins and Hazlewood were driven towards cover for boundaries and Pant, the enigma, who could not figure what he wanted to do with the bat, in a straightforward tournament like the IPL, had all of his skills and mindset sorted when all mattered for India.
Pant emerged from the ashes of the talks around his temperament with a blistering series with the bat and an abysmal IPL 2020 was left far behind.
His prowess with the bat became too big to overlook for India and Kohli conceded ahead of the England series that the team will back him to come good on Indian spinning tracks.
The series at home could not have started on a worse note for Pant as he dropped a tough chance as early on the first ball of Bumrah’s over, who incidentally was also playing the first home game of his already established career.
After England trounced India in the first Test on a flat deck, India were rigid on taking the toss out of the equation and out came the pitches that turned from the ball one in the next two games. The onus shifted to Rishabh Pant—the wicketkeeper, as spinners started to lick their lips on a dusty surface at Chepauk and a hard turner at Motera.
Pant’s footwork and reactions improved behind the stumps and he was able to gather balls right beneath his eyes—an aspect of wicketkeeping he was trying hard to improve on. Remember, once he was robbed one stumping as he had gathered the ball in front of the stumps.
The confidence of batting rubbed on him while with the gloves in his hands he improved with each delivery. In the middle of his improvement against spinners, he pouched some fantastic catches off pacers to establish his natural talent as a wicketkeeper.
Having won all his personal battles both with the bat and gloves in the first three Tests of the series, Pant had to resurrect India once again in a high-stake game at Motera.
India were under the pump when Ben Stokes trapped Rohit Sharma LBW on the second day and the onus fell on Pant’s shoulders to take India as close to England’s first innings score as possible. He defended, but only the balls he could not have scored off without taking unnecessary risks. He calculated Joe Root’s dilemma with Dominic Bess and only a four-man pronged English bowling attack.
His revamped approach of staying long in the crease paid off. With the new ball yet to be taken, Joe Root threw the ball to his only workhorse, Ben Stokes. The decision played right into Pant’s hands and he pounced on Stokes to up-the-ante for Anderson with the second new ball.
The pacer with more than 600 Test wickets did not get any better treatment from Pant. The first ball was hit over his head, while the next ball was swatted to the cover boundary and a sinking Anderson was taking England along with him in the final Test of the series.
England would have expected Pant to explode whenever he had his eyes in, but they too must have been surprised at the scale of Pant’s insanity. He pulled out a reverse scoop off Anderson in his second over with the new ball and an appreciative facial impression on Anderson’s face masked his and England’s helplessness in the wake of an onslaught.
Pant of now has come off age and he will get India past the finish line when he gets his acts right. However, the days when he will get it wrong, the edges of his bat will fly to slip cordon needing fans and team management to cope up with the unknowns that he brings with himself. Afterall, Pant is almost an enigma, isn't he?
 "Somya Kapoor")
