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Rishabh Pant is a blockbuster player, no iota of doubt about that. He is an entertainer, a box-office attraction, and someone who will instil fear into opposition minds whenever he is at the crease. Pant is the equivalent of what Ronaldinho was for football. Fearless, a risk-taker and impactful. With the range of shots he has in his armoury, it can look like he is attempting too many things at the same time. He might look silly when things don’t come off, but he is a thoroughbred match-winner, perhaps the biggest for India in Test cricket from the current crop of players.
Pant had to calm his inner demons on Day 4 of the Headingley Test against England after India lost captain Shubman Gill for just 8 in the second over of the day, without any change in the overnight score. India were under pressure, their fans were nervy and there were some tense faces in the dressing room. But Pant, almost freak-like, doesn’t seem to feel any nerves. He is ice-cold. He will go about his business even if his team is three down with just a lead of 96 runs.
When he walked into bat, Brydon Carse and Chris Woakes were bowling tight spells, but Pant is Pant. Off the very second delivery he faced, he danced down the track to give a delivery from Woakes a wild hack. The ball kissed the edge of the bat and flew over the slip cordon for a boundary. That was the start of another adventurous knock, after he had smashed a scintillating century in the first innings.
Pant kept himself calm in the next couple of overs, leaving the good deliveries and trusting his defence. But like Ronaldinho used to pull off a rainbow flick out of nowhere, Pant – at that point on 7 off 15 – decided to take on Woakes again. He blocked and left four deliveries. The second ball of the over, which just kept a bit low, had hit him on the inner thigh. While limping, Pant told Rahul, “Paki hui wali ball, itne tameez se khelne ke chakkar mein choot rahi hai [It was a hittable delivery, I am missing them while trying to play properly].”
He ran down the track to the fifth ball and whacked it straight past Woakes, as the slip cordon had their hands on their heads. Even some English fans cheered at the audacity from the left-hand batter. It was typical Pant, unhinged and raw.
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In the next over, Pant decided to pull another card from his pocket, this time against a fiery Carse as he attempted a slog towards the leg side against a delivery that was pitched around sixth stump. The ball again took the edge and just landed safely and trickled towards the boundary rope near fine-leg. And when Pant was going about his mad run, KL Rahul, in his own zen mode, walked down the track, tapping the pitch, to constantly have a word with India’s No. 5, perhaps in an attempt to calm him down.
But Pant is Pant. A couple of deliveries later, he tried to paddle-scoop Carse. The fact that he got some bat to that, the thinnest inside edge, saved him from a potential LBW. And from there, he started calming himself down. “Tu aisa kyu kar raha hai, iski kya zarurat hai (Why are you doing this, it is needless)?” he asked himself. From there, till lunch, Pant only had one boundary to his name, that too an outside edge that rolled to the boundary. He completed a mini-blockathon, trusting his defence and not throwing his wicket.
After the interval, he smashed three boundaries and all were calculated, barring one. He gently raised his bat after completing his half-century but what followed was truly Pant-esque. A cut towards the backward-point region, two sixes towards the Western Terrace off Shoaib Bashir, and a flamboyant hoick off England’s best bowler of the day – Carse. Soon after, the entire Western Terrace broke into the chants of “Rishabh Pant, Rishabh Pant, Rishabh Pant”. How many times does one hear that for a visiting batter?
In a country where batting has historically been tough for any batter from the Asian subcontinent, Pant now has consecutive scores of 50, 146, 57, 134 and 118. No visiting batter has hit more sixes than Pant in a Test in England – 8. That shows what he is, brave, courageous and bold. Occasionally reckless, but perhaps India’s biggest trump card with the bat in Tests since his debut.
Also Read: KL Rahul stands up to England Challenge, half century for the opener