Rishabh Pant has redefined Test cricket with his aggressive approach, but his T20 batting is still a work in progress, writes Sarah Waris.
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When Rishabh Pant came out to bat against Lucknow Super Giants in the IPL on Thursday, he had 11.3 overs left to get set and then go on the attack. After his side had lost three wickets in the space of three overs, Pant did well to hold one end up, facing 36 deliveries and staying till the very end of the innings. But he had only 39 runs to show at the end of his vigil.
After 20 overs, Pant’s Delhi had 149 runs on the board for the loss of three wickets, with Sarfaraz Khan unbeaten on 36 off 28. With big-hitters like Lalit Yadav, Axar Patel and Shardul Thakur to follow, the batters in the middle could have taken more risks to up the ante, especially Pant, who not only has the game but the mindset and the experience to go after the best bowlers in the world.
Ever since the tour of Australia last year, Pant has conquered Test cricket in his own unique style, scoring runs across conditions with nonchalance, eliminating any discussion over who India’s first-choice red-ball keeper is. The longest format has been swept away by Pant’s fearless approach, and he has nine 90-plus scores in 51 innings, including tons in Australia, England, South Africa and India. Only Ben Stokes hit more sixes in the format since his since Pant’s debut in 2018, and he sits pretty with a strike rate of 70.45 and average of 40.85. His last four Test knocks – 100*, 96, 39 and 50 – have each been delivered at a strike rate of over 70, with the last two, played on a sticky surface at Bengaluru, coming in at above 150.
His big-hitting abilities made him a natural candidate to excel in T20s, but his international, as well as his IPL numbers, are uninspiring. After 43 T20Is, Pant averages 24.39, with a hardly-rousing strike rate of 125.78, including three half-centuries and a high score of 65 not out. Though he has improved his numbers in the format since the start of 2021, his struggles in the IPL suggest that bigger issues still remain.
After showing what he is capable of in IPL 2019, where Pant ended the season with 488 runs at a strike rate of 162.66, the Delhi Capitals skipper has struggled to display his lethal prowess of late. Since the start of the 2020 edition, Pant has made 845 runs, but his strike rate has closely resembled the one he’s put up in T20Is: 121.75. The explosiveness hasn’t been there.
Captaincy doesn’t seem to have helped him either. Since becoming the skipper of the Delhi Capitals last year, Pant has scored 502 runs in 19 innings with a strike rate of just over 127, staying unbeaten on five occasions. Three of these unbeaten knocks have had a strike rate of less than 130, which could indicate that Pant has looked to bat with more responsibility and taken on the role of seeing the innings through.
Between overs 10 and 15, he has a strike rate of 121.3 in this period, but he has managed to pull up his batting rate in the final five overs, with his strike rate in that period reading 150.8 since the beginning of IPL 2021. The number at first glance might not be the most threatening, but it does indicate that Pant has the ability to get going after starting off slowly. Even in Tests, the 24-year old first looks to get a hang of the conditions before making a mockery of the bowlers; in his knock of 96 against Sri Lanka at Mohali, he took 73 balls to get to fifty before smashing 46 runs off his next 23 deliveries.
In T20Is, though, he doesn’t have the luxury of biding his time to begin with, particularly when India possess a top-heavy unit. The chances of shuffling the order to alter his entry point seem minimal too, with India possessing Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, Virat Kohli and Suryakumar Yadav as options in the top four. His role is that of a finisher who needs to go from ball one.
He can take matters into his hands when playing for Delhi and come out to bat earlier, but even then his conservatism, possibly due to a leadership role, is evident. Pant is a vastly talented player who has taken the Test circuit by storm, and he has the potential to be an all-format beast as well. But for that to happen, he has to bat the way he knows best and not what he thinks is expected of him.
