Pant is the real deal, never mind his occasional dalliance with ordinariness

He looked like Rishabh Pant, he answered to the name Rishabh Pant, but for more than a half-hour at the Pallekele International Cricket Stadium on Saturday night, it appeared as if an impostor had taken his place. There was none of the characteristic ebullience, no muscling of the ball, no electric running between the wickets, no shape as he tried to hit the cover off the ball. Rishabh Pant sleepwalked through his innings, unable to build on the hectic start provided by Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shubman Gill, struggling to sail in the wake of his marauding skipper Suryakumar Yadav.

Even the singles weren’t readily forthcoming and his first shot in semi-anger nearly proved his undoing. Walking across to Maheesh Theekshana to shovel-sweep, he was put down by Asitha Fernando at long-leg, the ball trickling away to the boundary and throwing him a lifeline. That didn’t energise him either. When Suryakumar was dismissed for an outrageous 58 in the first Twenty20 International against Sri Lanka, Pant had contributed just 16 off 17 deliveries in a third-wicket association worth 76.

What on earth was going on? Where was the acclaimed destroyer of bowling attacks? Where was the intrepid batter who thought little of going down on his haunches and smiting the ball behind square on the on-side, ending up on his backside even as the little orb sailed over the boundary ropes? Where was the gathering force that could crunch the ball through the off-side with such ferocity that even five yards was too much for the boundary-rider to cover? Where was Rishabh Pant?

Another gift

Lying in wait, as it transpired. Having thrown him one lifeline as a fielder, Fernando handed Pant another gift – a juicy full toss that was disdainfully whipped over mid-wicket for six. From 20 off 23, Pant had moved to 26 off 24. A false dawn, or the start of a late charge? The next ball provided an emphatic answer – another full toss, this time clattered over point for four.

By the time he was dismissed by the excellent Matheesha Pathirana in the penultimate over, Pant had leapfrogged to 49 off 33. He had more than caught up with balls faced, blasting 29 off his final 10 deliveries. There he was, the Rishabh Pant the cricketing world has come to love and admire. And envy and fear if one isn’t an Indian fan.

With Indian cricket on the throes of transition across formats, Pant is the bridge between the glorious past and the exciting future. He is only 26, but a mature, experienced, seasoned 26 who has literally stared the afterlife in the face and come back to tell the tale. With nearly 140 international caps against his name, he is the consummate all-format player, his unabashed ball-striking complemented by his excellent glovework that isn’t quite steeped in orthodoxy but that is also not as unconventional as Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s.

Pant has chosen his mentor and role model well. For nearly a decade and a half, Dhoni was Indian cricket’s go-to option, first as a long-maned free-flowing batter who hit the ball the proverbial country mile and brought smarts to his wicketkeeping, then as captain fantastic who pulled non-existent rabbits out of imaginary hats, and finally as the mature, understated senior statesman who pulled the strings inconspicuously even as Virat Kohli donned the captaincy garb. Anyone who succeeded Dhoni would be measured, unfairly, against the great man. Wriddhiman Saha perhaps felt the pinch in the five-day game, but it’s to Pant’s credit that he has more than held his own, setting himself up as the X-factor in Test matches while, steadily, threatening to translate his immense white-ball potential into decisive performances.

Incredible knocks

Already in his six-year Test career – he hasn’t played a five-day game since December 2022, one must not forget – Pant has uncorked some of the most incredible knocks on foreign patch. He has more masterpieces in 33 Tests than most have in a lifetime of First Class cricket, a tribute to his immense skills but also his enormous self-belief and confidence. Stunning centuries in Australia, England and South Africa, a jaw-dropping 97 in Sydney in 2021 that nearly facilitated a successful assault on a fourth-innings target of 407, and an exceptional unbeaten 89 in the next outing in Brisbane to turbocharge India’s historic three-wicket win, the first time in more than three decades that Australia had been tamed at the Gabbatoir.

In patches, Pant’s fledgling career seemed to mirror his Delhi mate Virender Sehwag’s, though. Credited rightly with redefining the approach to opening the batting in Tests, Sehwag didn’t exactly court the kind of limited-overs success his aggressive batsmanship commanded. True, he did become the second batter after Sachin Tendulkar to make a 50-over double hundred in internationals, but Sehwag’s was a white-ball career unfulfilled, by and large. For all the strokes at his command, and the consistency and strike-rate in Tests, he didn’t quite stride the white-ball firmament like a colossus. Pant seemed headed the same way for a while, though he now appears to have picked up the pieces and is well on his way to establishing himself as a cross-format behemoth.

And to think that, some 20 months back nearly to the day, he was waging a serious battle merely to stay alive. A horrific single-car road accident threatened to derail life as he knew it – not just cricketing, but life as a whole. Pant lay in hospital, physically battered, needing a series of surgeries to keep his crumbling body in shape. At the time, a comeback to international cricket was the last thing on anyone’s mind. Except Pant’s, that is.

It takes a special individual to possess the equanimity and sense of humour to make light of one of the most traumatic experiences. Firmly on the road to recovery as he put himself through an arduous rehabilitation process, Pant recalled that dark December 30 night of 2022 through the simplistic lens through which he has chosen to view life. “I had taken an SUV, but what I was seeing was a sedan,” he said of his immediate thoughts in the aftermath of the accident. He could afford to laugh at himself, more than 14 months later, but can one even begin to imagine what it must have been like for a professional sportsperson, for just anyone, to be confronted with the prospect of losing one’s right leg?

Where Pant is today is a tribute to his resolve. To his resilience and to the realisation that, having been given a second chance in the real sense of the term, he must make the most of it. Pant isn’t given to hyperbole; he isn’t as visibly expressive as some of his other colleagues. But inside that once-stocky frame that now appears lighter than it ever has resides a strong mind and a big heart.

Keith Miller, the great Australian all-rounder who fought in World War II, was once asked by Michael Parkinson about pressure in cricket. “Pressure is a Messerschmitt (German fighter aircraft) up your arse, playing cricket is not,” he retorted. Pant might hold a similar view though he might not articulate it as colourfully as the Aussie. He has come face to face with the worst of the worst and come out unscathed (as far as we can tell). What’s a 150-kmph thunderbolt?

Since his return to competitive cricket in March during the IPL, Pant has played 20-over cricket exclusively – for his franchise Delhi Capitals, and for India at the T20 World Cup and now here in Sri Lanka. Next week in Colombo could be the first time in 21 months, since Christchurch in November 2022, that he will be playing a 50-over game. It’s no one’s guess how he will stand up to the rigours of an extended limited-overs encounter, or indeed to those of Test cricket – India will begin a packed season on September 19 with the first of two Tests against Bangladesh in Chennai – for Pant’s fitness is no longer in question. He is well and truly back, the accident a distant but constant reminder of how things can turn in the bat of an eyelid, perhaps truer than imaginable in this instance.

Found his calling

Pant seems to have found his calling as a top-four batter in T20s. It’s a role he can reprise in the other two formats too simply because of the immense potential for damage coiled within his frame. In November, he will return to Australia, where he is something of a cult hero not just for his brazen knocks in 2018-19 and 2020-21, but also for his banter with then skipper Tim Paine on his first tour Down Under, six years back. Australia loves nothing more than a scrapper, someone capable of giving back as good as he gets. Pant is a handful with the bat and behind the stumps, but he is more than capable of holding his own in the battle of the lip with his quixotic humour delivered deadpan.

For all his gravitas, Pant is still the cuddly boy next door. The grim experiences of 20 months back haven’t dampened his spirit; the little kid in him surfaces more than occasionally, especially when he hauls himself off the turf without using his hands through the strength of his legs and his upper body, thanks to his grounding in gymnastics. But there is no doubting his maturity, his cricketing acumen, his out-of-the-box thinking. Rishabh Pant is the real deal, never mind his occasional dalliance with ordinariness.