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Rishabh Pant bats with the impudence and ingenuity to rival Adam Gilchrist as the great disruptor
James Anderson, the most prolific fast bowler in Test history, was armed with the second new ball. Anderson had figures of two for 19 from 17 overs, and India had a slender lead of only 20 runs. Ordinarily, this would be a time to be respectful of the opponent's greatness, and the circumstances of the game.
But Rishabh Pant is a cricketer conditioned in a very different way of thinking. Always he senses opportunity, not peril. And so, rather than seeing a bowler of Anderson’s reservoir of skill with a new ball, he sensed a moment to tilt the Test decisively in India’s direction. To Anderson’s very first ball, Pant charged down the pitch and launched him through long off for four. To his next, he reached for a wide delivery and smeared it through the off-side for another boundary.
When Anderson returned at the start of his second over, this time at least Pant had the decorum to wait in his crease. Except, rather than meeting the ball with the full face of the bat, Pant bent down on his front knee to reverse sweep - or was it more of a reverse scoop? - the ball over the slips for four. One of the greatest bowlers in Test history was being bent to Pant’s will by a cocktail of impudence, incredible skill and sheer ingenuity.
Pant’s temerity evoked a plea from Sunil Gavaskar, one of the greatest of all Indian batsmen, for him to remain responsible. At the start of the next over, Pant greeted Joe Root with a slog sweep over midwicket, nonchalantly clearing the man placed for the very shot to advance from 94 to 100 in one clean blow and reveal the broadest smile.
It was a shot in keeping with Pant's essence. In 2018, when lofting his second ball in Test cricket for a straight six, Pant became the 12th Test cricketer in history to get off the mark with a six. He is the only one of the 12 to have reached his maiden Test century with a six - and, when he slog swept Root, Pant ensured he had reached both his first home and away century with one.
Yet, what Pant does is not reckless; it is simply his answer to the question of how to score runs. The chutzpah conceals that he is a calculating revolutionary.
Over 20 Tests, Pant has already displayed an extraordinary sense of the shifting demands in Test cricket. In Ahmedabad, entering at 80 for four, with India’s prospects of reaching the World Test Championship final newly jeopardised, Pant initially responded with studious calm. His partner Rohit Sharma was playing fluently and Pant made only six from 23 balls.
Now, with selectivity and calculation, Pant accelerated. He used his feet to launch Root for a straight six in his first over - a strategic blow, for it limited Root’s first spell to two overs and induced him to overbowl Ben Stokes - drove Jack Leach through wide long off and then scythed the errant Bess through the covers. Mostly, Pant’s trick was to score with alacrity while eschewing risk. When he brought up his 50 in 82 balls, Pant had only 22 in boundaries. But he does not need boundaries to score with haste: so fearful are opponents of what he can unleash that they allow him to pick-off singles with ease. These seemingly effortless runs are payback for the pyrotechnics.
Always, though, the threat of violence remains. And in the moments before the second new ball, Pant sensed that the time was now.
For all Leach’s excellence this series, England still recall how Pant looted 48 from 21 balls against the left-armer in the opening Test. By providing the merest glimpse of similar intentions in Ahmedabad - a violent swipe through the on-side to reduce England’s lead to 10 - Pant drove Root to whisk his frontline spinner out of the attack, with five overs still remaining until the second new ball.
So Stokes was summoned back, still exhausted by his earlier exertions: a snapshot of how Pant’s audacity disorientates the fielding captain's plans. Now, against the old ball and then the new, Pant sensed this was the time for a riotous assault. As India secured a lead, and then rapidly advanced it, Pant looted 45 runs from 24 balls.
The manner in which he did so encapsulated why he is more than a magnificent cricketer; he is a great disruptor, a player utterly encumbered by notions of the right way to play or what constitutes ‘smart cricket’. In Tests, one-day internationals and even T20, a hallmark of ‘smart cricket’ has always been the notion that a batsman should follow a boundary with a low-risk single to consolidate their advantage. More than anybody else in Indian cricket, Pant’s reaction to a boundary is not to follow the accepted wisdom but instead to double down. Adam Gilchrist, a fellow left-handed keeper-batsman who Pant now threatens to rival, scored a Test six every 68 balls; Pant hits one every 58, a figure that only bowlers and allrounders can better in Tests this century.
Disruptors are often mistrusted, and too often this has been Pant’s fate. For vast swathes of the time since his international debut in 2017, India’s selectors have focused on the outlandish shots that lead to dismissals, rather than the runs that the same buccaneering spirit brings. Two years ago, when he was only 21, head coach Ravi Shastri promised “a rap on the knuckles” after one dismissal in an ODI in the West Indies. Since his international debut Pant has been dropped by India in all three formats; he needed the debris of India to be 36 all out in Adelaide to win his Test recall in December.
Occasionally, a player of Pant’s enterprise will exasperate. Yet his astounding repertoire of shots and his understanding of when to use them are not just producing astounding innings, but doing so with disarming consistency. Aged 23, he now boasts 1,358 runs at 45 apiece, all while scoring at a strike rate of 71.
In the space of two months in Test cricket this year, Pant has now played three innings that instantaneously thrust themselves into Indian cricketing lore. His swashbuckling 97 on the final day at Sydney, utterly reordered the feel of the match and helping India claim a draw. His unbeaten 89 in Brisbane brought clinical efficiency to a chase of 328 to win one of the greatest Test series of them all. Having played the innings that sealed India’s Test series win in Australia, now Pant has almost certainly played the innings that has sealed their Test series win over England too. All of this, and in 2021 Pant hasn’t yet been glimpsed in probably his best format: T20.
This century, Indian cricket has had three figures who transcended their sport and defined their age. The age of Tendulkar gave way to the age of Dhoni, which has now transitioned to the age of Kohli. After his wondrous feats this year, we may soon be speaking of the age of Pant.
