Rishabh Pant: India’s modern-day Test cricket saviour

Edgbaston, Birmingham, July 1. Typical overcast English conditions. A confident England captain, Ben Stokes, walks out for the toss. The coin falls in his favour and unsurprisingly, he chooses to bowl first. India is 2-1 ahead in the series but this is a new England team led by a new captain and a new coach.

James Anderson has the ball in hand. Indian openers Shubman Gill and Cheteshwar Pujara start steadily. But not much later, Anderson starts unwinding his magic stick. He gets both the openers. Newbie Matthew Potts joins the party too. He first removes a set Hanuman Vihari and then follows it with the big wicket of Virat Kohli. India is down and out on 98-5 inside the first two sessions on day one!

Ask any cricket expert and he would tell you there is hardly any chance of making a comeback from a stage like this. You have lost your top and middle-order and opposition bowlers are breathing fire. There is a nasty cloud cover. In short, all odds are stacked against you. But then can you predict anything when Rishabh Pant is still at the crease?

Trust me, you can’t! The Indian wicketkeeper batter doesn’t just know how to entertain the audience with his behind-the-stump banter but he is equally capable of turning upside down a Test match on his own.

He did exactly that on July 1. He played his natural game – not leaving any opportunity to send the ball to the boundary despite all the pressure mounting up. The English bowlers who seemed to be unplayable earlier looked lost. They tried everything – bouncers, in and out-swingers, yorkers – but Rishabh remained unmoved.

He received tremendous support from all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja at the other end. The duo lifted India after the terrible start by forming a mammoth partnership of 222 runs. Meanwhile, even after reaching his fifty in 51 balls, Pant didn’t stop being aggressive. The 24-year-old kept playing his shots all-round the park. He crossed the golden three-figure-mark in just 89 balls, having hit 15 fours and a six.

England was finally able to dismiss him in the 67th over of the innings but he had already done the damage. He ended up making 146 runs in 111 balls to ensure India posted a very good first innings total of 416 runs. Jadeja also scored a hundred later on the second day.

Thanks to Pant’s heroics, India is in a comfortable position to win the match after fetching a huge 132-run first-innings lead. Notably, it wasn’t the first time that Pant came to India’s rescue. He has done it quite a few times in the last couple of years, especially in the longest format.

He was the main character in India’s historic series wins in Australia as well. Even though the youngster often gets criticised for his aggressive approach, he keeps on playing match-winning knocks for India without paying attention to the trolls. So, there would rarely be any argument on Rishabh being called the modern-day Test cricket saviour for the Indian team!

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