Image Credit- BCCI
Legspinners do this very neat thing at the top of their mark. With one hand, they give the ball a big, fat rip, and with the other, they use their open palm to maintain contact with it as it goes on a loop, starting low and rising high. The fact that they never look at the ball is the most important aspect of this ruse.
Rishabh Pant started the 20th over of the chase in the Delhi Premier League last month with this move. He got a lot of drift and a lot of flight into the right-hander, perhaps too much, which created a chance for a straightforward tap to long-on for the game-winning single. It was day 596 at this point.
Pant was involved in an automobile accident on December 30, 2022. The fact he lived was a miracle. It was unclear at the moment if he would ever play cricket again. Not only is he back, but he has space in his life for new experiences now.
Even if bowling in a T20 match was entertaining, Pant has been preparing really hard for something even greater that is coming up. In fact, during India’s three-hour training session in Chennai on Monday, it was difficult to identify another player who spent as much time out in the middle as he did.
He was all over the place during a fielding drill with the slip cordon, diving this way and that. facing the main ground and Jasprit Bumrah. Leaving it to make some throwdowns and enter the netting. Taking a brief break to cool yourself in front of a massive, portable fan because the temperatures in Chennai are getting close to September record highs. returning to the main field to take on the spinners. It seems as though he has overlooked this.
There’s typically a good likelihood of hijinks when Pant is brought to a group that already includes a bat, a ball, and other individuals. He interrupted the other team’s pre-game warm-up last week at the Duleep Trophy and, after play started, made demands that they not score any runs. Here, things were distinct.
He was being very good three days before the new Test season for India began, taking advice from head coach Gautam Gambhir and studying in groups with his wicketkeeping brother Dhruv Jurel.
His most famous shot, which went from the pitch on the farthest part of the square on the off side all the way to the wide long-on boundary, wasn’t until R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, and Kuldeep Yadav were chucking the ball up or pulling them down.
India has taken great care with Pant, and while he hasn’t yet produced a standout performance, there are growing glimpses of promise. Day 450 of the vehicle accident. He took his first few steps. Day 457. It was his first fifty. Day 523. He joined the Indian squad again. Day 538. He won the world championship.
“It’s a remarkable comeback, honestly,” Ricky Ponting, who has worked very closely with Pant at Delhi Capitals, told Sky Sports. “If you can even see his leg now, and if you listen to the stories he tells about what he confronted when he woke up on the side of the road having been thrown out of his car 40m up the road at 200kph, I mean…
“You’ve all seen him play. You’ve heard him on the stump mic. He’s an infectious character to have around the group. He loves his cricket. He’s a winner. He doesn’t just play to make a few runs and be out there for the fun of it. He must have four or five Test hundreds already and he’s got about nine [six] 90s as well. You know, [MS] Dhoni played for, what 120 Tests [90] and made three of four [six] hundreds. This is how good this guy is.”
And after 629 days, he’s back.