Rishabh Pant masters his own tune and walks his own beat as he scores his third test century on English soil.
Rishabh Pant masters his own tune and moves to his own beat.
In a bygone era, Rishabh Pant would have felt completely at home in England. In fact, Pant is still pretty comfortable at home. In this country, the only wicketkeepers with more hundreds are Alec Stewart and Matt Prior. There aren’t any visiting wicketkeepers. He has more hundreds in this nation than Virat Kohli and Sunil Gavaskar combined.
He could somersault around the streets with just his long hair, kohl in his eye and a fisherman jumper. He could name himself Rish the Beat, after the insanely talented guitarist and singer-songwriter of the day, Syd Barrett, who for a while was known as Syd the Beat.
The second ball he encounters, Pant dances down. appears to enter his bunker. attempts to ramp-pull Josh Tongue, the bowler who caused him the greatest trouble, on occasion. plays some real filthy slogs against Chris Woakes, including one in the final over of the day. Early on the second morning, Brydon Carse is charged.
When Jamie Smith, the opposition wicketkeeper, attempts to get him to take a risky shot against Shoaib Bashir, Pant tells him that the field is wide out and the bowler is bowling well, therefore he can’t. He continues to slog-sweep the subsequent ball for his 79th career six, surpassing MS Dhoni and trailing just Rohit Sharma and Virender Sehwag among Indians.
He uses a one-handed six to reach his hundred. He has dropped in the 90s seven times, which is equal to the number of his current hundreds. Three times, attempting to hit a six. He got out to the replacement ball on 99 after hitting a six outside the ground once, which resulted in the ball being lost.
Pant’s batting has to be methodical. We can only speculate based on some of the trends until he discusses it in the future, or he may decide to keep it a secret.
Early in the piece, he prefers to target seam bowlers. Under more difficult circumstances, he becomes aggressive. He enjoys hitting balls in areas where fielders aren’t, which sounds absurdly easy but is difficult to do.
Only one of Ben Stokes’s subsequent nine deliveries was pitched on that good length after he charged down to his second ball. He played 22 false shots and faced 108 balls of pace in this innings, for instance, with a control percentage just around 80. Of all 108 balls, just 35 were inside a reasonable 6- to 8-meter radius of the stumps. He gave them sixteen fake shots.
When bowlers arrive at Pant, there must be no rhythm or strategy. There must be no standard by which to evaluate his procedures. All we can do is show up and wait to see what treat Beat Rish has in store for us.