'When in trouble, call the spiderman' - Twitter in awe of Rishabh Pant's counterattacking ton at Edgbaston

Rishabh Pant has slammed his fifth Test ton on the opening day of the ongoing game against England at Edgbaston in Birmingham. The southpaw’s counterattacking innings has made sure that India is in a brilliant position with Ravindra Jadeja also going strong at the other end. The visitors were in trouble at one stage struggling at 98/5 and it seemed like the England pacers will restrict them to a meagre total in the first innings.

But Pant took the attack to the opposition bowlers and batted smartly to lead the team’s comeback. He came out to bat when India lost Hanuma Vihari with only 64 runs on the board and then saw Virat Kohli and Shreyas Iyer go back to the pavilion with England bossing the proceedings. This is when the youngster took control of the innings and first looked to rotate the strike.

He opened the shackles right away after left-arm spinner Jack Leach was introduced into the attack. The latter was coming off a 10-wicket haul in the previous game against New Zealand but Pant had no business playing him out. He stepped out to the Leach to deposit him for a six and a four in a single over and that started the carnage.

Rishabh Pant reverse slogged James Anderson too

It wasn’t a T20 kind of innings from Rishabh Pant but he grew in confidence amazingly as he spent more time in the middle. The left-hander even came down the ground to veteran James Anderson to smash him for a boundary on multiple occasions. The famous reverse slog also came out in the 48th over of the innings off the pacer albeit with little success. However, that didn’t deter Pant from going for his shots as he made sure England never had the measure of him and his partner Jadeja during the partnership.

He literall unleashed his best in the final session as runs continued to come thick and fast and Pant raced away into the 80s. After being away from strike for quite some time, the man targetted Leach yet again to get close to the century and this time, he smacked for a couple of fours by stepping out of his crease. It was some clean hitting from Rishabh Pant as the Edgbaston crowd was treated to some epic batting.

After smashing Leach, Pant got to his fifth Test ton in the very next over off Stuart Broad with a diving couple after which the crowd and the Indian dressing stood up to applaud a fantastic chanceless knock. He reached the three-figure mark in just 89 balls making the fastest by an Indian wicketkeeper in Tests. On the way to his brilliant century, Rishabh Pant also became the youngest player in the history of Test cricket to cross the 2000-run mark.

Here’s how Twitter reacted: