India have built a unique leadership combo in Test cricket. While the calm and composed Shubman Gill leads as captain, his deputy Rishabh Pant is cut from a different cloth — lively, vocal behind the stumps, part commentator, part motivator, and always ready with a clever mind game or two. Sachin Tendulkar recently exposed one such moment, but another slipped under the radar on Day 2 in Leeds.
Incidentally, both happened during India’s first innings batting, both during a Shoaib Bashir over. The one that Sachin revealed pertained to the use of the Hindi language in which Pant and Gill conversed, especially during the overs from the spinner, who is of Pakistani origin and hence is well acquainted with the language. Taking to social media, the batting legend reckoned that the ploy was used to unsettle Bashir.
Later in the same innings, shortly after Pant notched up his seventh career Test century, he sledged England wicket-keeper Jamie Smith into a blunder. In what was caught on Cricbuzz commentary at the start of the 104th over, Pant was heard telling Smith that “fielders are all back, again.” He then went down on one knee against the flighted delivery from Bashir and slog swept it over square for a six.
Bashir dished out a similar one on the next ball and Pant danced down the track for another maximum, but failed to connect as the delivery spun past the bat. It presented England with an easy opportunity to dismiss the Indian batter, but Smith fumbled. The ball had bounced a fair bit, and the wicketkeeper, too, had hurried to dislodge the bails, and in a bid didn’t collect the ball.
“Pant sledged the keeper into a mistake,” Cricbuzz noted.
Pant eventually finished with 134 runs. It was the third century in the innings after similar knocks from opener Yashasvi Jaiswal and Gill as India notched up their highest total in an away Test since making 622/7 dec in the New Year’s Test in Sydney in 2019. This was also their first 400-plus total in England since 664 at the Oval in 2007.
However, it was also the lowest total that included three individual tons, as India lost their last seven wickets for just 41 runs.