“Finally,” he smiled, cheekily. “It feels good but at the same time, it’s a responsibility also to share your knowledge, your experience.”
Being cheeky is something that comes naturally to Rishabh Pant. Cheeky good, that is. He is a constant stream of chatter from behind the stumps, and he will often make you laugh, but he is never malicious or offensive. But more than anywhere else, his cheekiness manifests itself in his batting. Sometime to irate ‘Stupid, stupid, stupid’ admonishments of the kind Sunil Gavaskar doled out in Melbourne last December, but also with spectacular outcomes.
Pant is on his third full tour of England. It was here that, in August 2018, he made his Test debut midway through a five-match series. In only his third appearance, at The Oval, he provided glimpses of the immense potential nestling in his stocky frame, with a spectacular 114 in a sixth-wicket stand of 204 with KL Rahul. From 121 for five, chasing 464 for a consolation victory, India mounted a stunning rearguard action though eventually they fell well short, beaten by 118 runs to surrender the series 1-4.
In the next series – the fourth and the fifth Tests were split by a year – he unleashed 146 off a mere 111 deliveries with India in all sorts of trouble, 98 for five, on the first morning of the final Test, in Birmingham in July 2022. Once again, there was no joy for Pant or India, who were hammered by seven wickets with England rallying to square the showdown 2-2.
Four of Pant’s six Test hundreds have come away from home, each breathtakingly brilliant. But for all his imperious majesty at the crease, he was forced to play second fiddle to Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma. In their retirements from the five-day game, Pant has now gate-crashed into the ‘senior batter’ category – which is what elicited that ‘finally’ comment on Wednesday afternoon – and been promoted as the vice-captain of the five-day team, forming the playing leadership group alongside Shubman Gill (Shubby, as he calls him), the new Test skipper.
From maverick to mentor: Pant embraces responsibility without shedding flair
Pant and Gill share an excellent rapport off the field, which should translate into smart decision-making on it. As friends, they can agree to disagree; while Pant understands that Gill as captain must have the last word, the latter respects his slightly older buddy’s inputs and will not disagree just for the sake of it. It’s to this group that Indian cricket will look as it seeks to break away from an excellent past and move into an exciting tomorrow full of promise and hope.
An impish smile broke out on Pant’s face when he held forth on the challenges of batting in England. “You have to upscale your basics,” he remarked. “You have to respect the condition. You don’t have to be too aggressive.” Perhaps, he was trying to convince himself, you wondered…
The thing is, Rishabh Pant won’t go away wondering. He is very much an instinctive batter, backing himself to play the most outrageous strokes even in the five-day game while being well aware that if he falls only marginally short in execution, he will be the object of unforgiving, stringent criticism. It’s a trade-off he finds acceptable. He doesn’t mind looking ‘stupid’ if he is convinced the odds are in his favour, though as senior batter and vice-captain, he knows that there is more riding on his shoulders now than ever before.
Pant must perhaps be telling his younger batting colleagues to ‘do as I say, not as I do’. After all, not many can do what he does. Not many can even think of doing what he can. Despite his obvious and sustained high-risk approach, he averages 42.11 from 43 Tests while striking at 73.62 runs per 100 balls faced. He also smashes almost one six an innings in Test cricket (73 in 75 knocks), which reiterates his image as a risk-non-averse batter without a negative bone in his body.
Even in his early days under Kohli, and then with greater confidence and authority when Rohit took charge, Pant was a leader in his own right. Especially from behind the stumps, which gave him the best vantage position from which to read the game, he firmly moved the fielders around, sussing up the angles and redirecting traffic secure in the knowledge that his captain had his back. That aspect of his cricket will remain unchanged. As a batter, though, it will be interesting to see if the additional responsibility sparks a battle between his instinct and his altered status within the team landscape, and particularly so with (vice-capt.) riding alongside his name. What have you got in store for us, Rishabh Pant?