India are alive in the final Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy thanks largely to Rishabh Pant's counter-attacking half-century – in his unique fashion. Aadya Sharma marvels at his method, and writes that India need him to be himself.
For several decades now, roller-coasters have been broadly classified into two types, steel or wood. A third one, a mix of both, is termed a hybrid roller-coaster. An official fourth one is what cricket commentators use to describe Rishabh Pant’s Test batting.
The r-word was repeatedly thrown at the mic in Sydney on Saturday, when Pant teased and thrilled, blurring the lines between spunky and (quoting Sunil Gavaskar) stupid.
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What’s actually stupid is our constant questioning of Pant’s approach. He’s been around for six years now – and it’s almost always this method that has worked wonders for him.
It definitely did in Sydney. The pitch was wearier, the ball was jagging around as if on a string, and India’s lead was as slender as slender can be. Yashasvi Jaiswal began with four boundaries off one Mitchell Starc over, but was wafting at thin air not long after, as the Australians found the right lengths to tease.
Pant walked in to replace Virat Kohli, who had been dismissed (no guesses how) to Scott Boland for the fifth time this series. The first ball was a shockingly honest forewarning of the route he’d take: prancing down and ploughing the day’s best bowler over long-on for a six.
The next ball, he was beaten. The ball after, he attempted a reverse lap that would have made Gavaskar shriek. It was going to be that sort of an evening – every punch mattered.
It hadn’t even been a day since perhaps Pant’s most laborious Test knock, a clear attempt to bat in an uncharacteristically disengaging manner. Hours earlier, media reports had revealed the coach’s dressing room diktat: to play according to the laid-out strategy or be ready to be axed. “Honest words”, is what Gambhir had described his conversation with the team to be, staving off said reports. Elsewhere, whispers suggested Pant could even be dropped.
Watch: Virat Kohli punches himself in anger after yet another outside-edge dismissal
So, when he copped blows on his body, switching from Pant to Pujara, one wondered if a generational talent, untamed by bowlers the world over, had succumbed to the rigidity of a team plan.
On day two, he did not.
With the pitch doing a lot more, attempting to set up camp and survive wouldn’t have been a lasting strategy. Pant understood he had to counter-punch with the lead still in double-digits, and a long time left in the game. He shed the gritty guise and galvanised his gutsy self. On air, Justin Langer couldn’t help make a Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde reference for the supposed split personality.
From a visual sense, Pant’s counter-attack was a delight. The others were poking and prodding at Boland; Pant nearly took his head off with a flat-batted smash with India four down. Against Beau Webster, he executed his largely infamous falling pull-scoop, a misfired version of which had led to Gavaskar’s “stupid, stupid, stupid” comment.
But that’s the trade-off. “He gets runs in tricky situations when the pitch is spicy,” Ravi Shastri, his former coach, said on commentary. “I have seen him get them on turners, there’s pace and bounce on this one.”
“And that is his role. He will get out earlier, much like Head at No.5. If he gets going, he will take the game away from you”.
Next ball, he thumped one over extra cover, making full use of the vacant area and giving India a much-needed push. It compelled Australian captain Pat Cummins to bring up the wicketkeeper, after which Pant decided to slog to the leg side.
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It had taken him 19 balls to reach 40. A day earlier, he’d taken 97 balls to inch to the same score.
Pant wasn’t blindly slogging either: the ploy was to maximise the empty patches and take India as forward in the game as possible. Within a handful of deliveries, he had given India a possibility of fighting total. Without him, their chances were flatlining.
In the last two and a half decades, a score over 200 has been chased down just once at the SCG.
He chose his battles too: he took three singles against Boland and three doubles against Cummins, channeling his big-hits against Webster, the weakest link of the attack, taking 23 off his 10 balls. Either side of Pant, the Indian batters scratched and perished. Jadeja, a muted partner in the sixth-wicket stand, took about an hour to budge from his score of two.
At this point, India’s lead stands at 145 – without Pant, they could have been sitting ducks on a day when fifteen wickets fell in all.
For every second-innings SCG blitz, there will be an MCG dismissal. The falling pull won’t always come off. The reverse lap will look stupid on some days.
But that’s the compromise you live with for housing a generational talent in your XI. He might not drop you home every day, but he’ll rescue you from the woods when no one else can.
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