World T20: How the fearless Rishabh Pant nosed ahead of Sanju Samson and Yashasvi Jaiswal

Last year in October during the 50-overs World Cup in India, former England captain and cricket correspondent of The Times newspaper Michael Atherton had bumped into Rishabh Pant at a Bangalore hotel gym. He would mention in his tour diary how the Indian superstar, all alone doing his endless repetitions, reminded him of the long, lonely hours athletes are forced to spend during rehabilitation.

In December of 2022, Pant, driving his SUV late at night on the Delhi-Haridwar highway, had driven into a divider. The vehicle was damaged beyond repair, the right leg was equally mangled. Most bones had smashed, every ligament had also snapped – the lower part of the right leg hung at a worrying angle. After 10 months, Pant had looked cheerful to Atherton. The wicket-keeper showed him a surgery scar that started at the top of the knee and ended way down.

Cut to his international return – India’s opening game against Ireland in the T20 World Cup. Back in India blues, playing on a wicked wicket where balls flew after pitching, he was being tested – first as a keeper and later as India’s newly promoted frontline batsman. However, Pant showed no visible scars – physical or mental – of the horrific accident and the frustrating healing process.

Rishabh Pant’s batting position will be a point of focus for India ahead of the T20 World Cup 2024 opener against Ireland. (BCCI)

The team’s surprise No.3, Pant looked the part. India seemed to have found the missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle they had been searching for a while now. They had the cast but didn’t have roles for them. Before Pant arrived on the scene, the team management was dealing with a pile of batsmen that could be broadly divided in two boxes.

The first was for the Test and ODI stalwarts Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, the two most experienced players exuding solidity. The second box was for the T20 natives Hardik Pandya and Shivam Dube, and had aggression written on it. Now a third box has been commissioned, it’s designated to Suryakumar Yadav and Pant, the two bonafide hitters known to play unconventional shots but who are not seen as T20 specialists. At this World Cup, the three pairs have fallen in a neat progression from steady to aggressive.

Since India don’t play the all-new smash and scoot brand of T20 where every batsman is pathologically combative and is instructed to only fly sorties – the KKR and SRH style – this seems to be the best-suited plan. The new-age T20 players cook on full-flame, slow-burn cricket is suddenly seen as limiting and unambitious.

But games in America and West Indies will decide if the Indian style has a future. Since Pant has a strategically important position in the line-up at No.3, he could end up playing a central role in the larger war between the two schools of T20 thoughts.

Like his fall after the accident, the rise too has been sudden. Till very recently, Pant wasn’t quite the consensus candidate to be India’s No.3 at the T20 World Cup. At the start of the IPL, the game’s stake-holders were not sure about him. IPL, many thought, was seen as an outing to check his fitness. There was Ishan Kishan, KL Rahul, Dhruv Jurel, Jitesh Sharma and even Dinesh Karthik. Way back in the queue but Pant beat them all to make it to the World T20 squad. Once in the US, he convinced the captain and coach that he was a better option than Sanju Samson and got named in the playing XI. Level 1 and 2 cleared but there was more. So what was it about Pant that made Rohit and Dravid pick him ahead of Yashasvi Jaiswal and even Shubman Gill in the team’s sacred Top 3?

India’s Rishabh Pant plays a reverse shot for six runs to seal the victory by 8 wickets against Ireland during an ICC Men’s T20 World Cup cricket match at the Nassau County International Cricket Stadium in Westbury, New York. (AP | PTI)

Maybe, it was because of the faith and belief that the team had on the proven match winner, the big-stage performer and the contrarian not afraid to take on the game’s stalwarts. In case we were attentive, there were stray comments that underlined the robust reputation that Pant enjoys in the Indian dressing room.

This happened twice during the India-England Test series at the start of the year, when Pant was far from making a comeback. The world saw him only on social media – in a wheelchair post surgery, with the physio discarding crutches, walking in the pool with a trainer and finally him making a non-serious attempt at batting with amateurs. Pant was far, far away from the Indian team. He was out of sight, but he wasn’t out of their mind.

Against England, India would discover an all-format left-handed smasher in Jaiswal but still Pant wasn’t forgotten. After the young Mumbai boy had pulverised the English bowlers, India’s old hand Ravichandran Ashwin said: “He reminds me of Rishabh Pant, those two could be fun if they bat together!” When Rohit was asked about England opener Ben Duckett’s ridiculous comment of Jaiswal getting inspired by Bazball, he would smirk and say, “There was this guy called Rishabh Pant, probably Duckett hasn’t seen him bat.”

So as soon as Pant recovered, he was drafted in and even gifted a new prominent role. Rohit has an eye for talent, he values those blessed with nerves of steel too. He was just outside the boundary ropes during Pant’s finest hour. From the decisive fourth Test of the 2021 Border Gavaskar Trophy, there was a moment that captured Pant’s greatness. Rohit, sitting next to Ajinkya Rahane, wouldn’t have missed it.

Facing the GOAT offie Nathan Lyon, Pant had got a ball that pitched on the leg and deviated devilishly towards slip. Amused by the massive turn, Nathan smiled. Pant stayed poker faced. His true intentions were clear on the very next ball. As the bowler floated another in the air, Pant jumped out and hit the ball for a six. The stroke defied cricket wisdom, even common sense.

India’s Rishabh Pant plays a shot against Ireland during an ICC Men’s T20 World Cup cricket match at the Nassau County International Cricket Stadium in Westbury, New York. (AP | PTI)

Years later when a movie was made on the storied Brisbane Test, Pant would speak about his mad move and his madder method. “Top bowlers don’t think that a batsman will take a chance after the ball has turned that much. But mere dimag mai alag hi planning chal rahi thi. Agar mere area mai ho toh, I will hit. More so since he didn’t expect me to do so,” he said.

The other day at New York, when India was chasing a tricky total, Pant came up with a ridiculous reverse lap on a diabolical pitch of uneven bounce. Rohit would have smirked. He would have been happy to see that the horrific car accident hadn’t changed that priceless trait in the player he had backed. The audacity was still there in the big heart of the little rebel. His body might have been damaged, left scars on him but his batting soul had come out unscathed.

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