THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Second ball into his innings after coming in to bat at number five, the left-hander picked medium pacer Ashish Kumar off his legs and deposited him over the fine leg boundary with the same ease as a swan taking to the waters.
Couple of deliveries later, he drove one between mid off and cover to the ropes. There were two sounds. Of leather hitting the sweet spot of the willow and then crashing against the iron fence. More exquisite shots were to follow.
Delhi skipper Unmukt Chand, the more experienced and established of the two, was a content rotating strike.
Being Sunday, there was more crowd at St Xavier’s College stadium compared to the opening day.
Being a neutral venue, most of the crowd wouldn’t have known many of the players in both the squads. But this southpaw was an exception. From the very first hit off him over the fence, they knew it was him. Rishabh Pant. The new blockbuster that has hit the domestic scene.
Pant’s rise has been as rapid as his strike rate. Hailing from Haridwar in Uttarakhand which doesn’t even have a BCCI affiliation, the wicketkeeper-batsman was the engine behind India’s progression to the U-19 World Cup semifinals.
The 308 he scored against Maharashtra at Wankhede this Ranji season has been the perfect testimonial to the arrival of a teenager who hits clean, hard and can burn all through the day than be a momentary flicker. On Sunday, he once again put on display his unique traits- high bat speed, precise judgement of length and presentation of the straight face of the blade, to notch his third ton this season. He was unbeaten at 107 from 84 balls and hit eight sixes in the pursuit.
“Aggression is his speciality and I don’t try to curb it. The good thing is that he plays it with a straight bat and connects with most of his shots. But still, he at times make me skip a few heartbeats,” said Delhi coach Bhaskar Pillai in a lighter vain.
Pant echoed the same. “It’s my style to hit from the word go and I don’t change that. That said I give respect to good balls. Today Shahbaz Nadeem was bowling well, so I had to respect him,” Pant said. His words and work style bear an uncanny resemblance to Virender Sehwag, whom he views as his icon.
Pillai adds: “He has been good with the bat and can fit the shoes of MS Dhoni in ODIs once he hangs his boots,” felt Bhaskar Pillai. “But to make it into the Test squad, he needs to improve his wicketkeeping skills.”