India’s young wicketkeeper-batsman Rishabh Pant is going places. Whenever he comes out to bat, he is certainly making his presence count on the pitch. The way in which he has been scoring runs pretty quickly and that too at a fantastic strike-rate, Team India have benefited a lot from him.
Rishabh Pant has been in sensational form in the longest format of the game of late. Ever since he replaced Wriddhiman Saha in the Indian Test team in the last two Tests against Australia at the SCG and at The Gabba, he was a different player altogether.
His overall performance improved a lot. Since the Border Gavaskar Trophy series 2020-21, Pant has been scoring runs on a consistent basis. He scored 97 and 89 in the third and fourth Test. His crucial knocks came at a time when India drew the SCG Test and won the Gabba Test.
India won the series by 2-1, in what was a historic Test series win and a great comeback by the visitors. The Indians repeated the same trick in the high-profile Test series against England. After losing the first Test by 227 runs and with the ICC World Test Championship final at stake, India made a fairy tale comeback by winning three matches in a row.
Rishabh Pant gets Man of the Match award
Team India won the fourth Test by an innings and 25 runs. As a result, they won the Test series by 3-1. They will confront New Zealand in the ICC World Test Championship final at Lord’s in June 2021. Meanwhile, Rishabh Pant was named the man of the match for his exceptional batting.
In the first innings, when the top order batsmen collapsed, it was Pant who inflated India’s momentum. He scored runs at a quick pace and went on to score his 3rd Test century. His innings was laced with 13 fours and 2 sixes. After receiving the man of the match award, Harsha Bhogle asked an interesting question to Pant.
India’s renowned commentator asked Pant: ““We are getting a criticism that we should stop commentary when Rishabh is wicketkeeping.” To which Pant replied: “Ye mera complement hai, aapko problem hai toh improve karo aap log.” (Roughly Translating it into English: This is my complement, you have a problem, so you guys improve it.)
