SYDNEY: Rishabh Pant was lying down in the middle of Sydney Cricket Ground. He was being attended to by the physio in front of the sellout record crowd on day one of the fifth and final Test between India and Australia on Friday.
The Indian keeper-batter had been hit twice off Australia captain Pat Cummins' bowling on consecutive deliveries in the 49th over. The first one was a short delivery that he tried to duck and got hit on the shoulder and the second one hit him in the abdomen. Pant batting on 26 off 74 balls at that time was visibly in pain and had no choice but to call for some medical attention.
It had been that kind of a day for the 27-year-old. He was first hit in the back arm while trying to defend Mitchell Starc and then came the blow to the helmet from the left-arm pacer. It was not the usual Pant who had come to Australia twice before and dominated them in such a way that fans wrote songs about it.
This was different. He had been struggling to spend some time in the middle. The underlying issue that had largely gone unaddressed is that he had come into bat much earlier than he did in the previous tours thanks to multiple top-order collapses. But the focus was more on how Pant had been getting out.
He has been sticking to his unorthodox methods while trying to take the game head-on and falling short. And it had come at a cost.
After the kind of dismissals, he had in Melbourne — one trying to scoop Scott Boland and the other a slog off Travis Head — Rohit Sharma had a message for Pant - he has to figure out what method works for him and what is required of him for the team in a certain situation. Although the captain did admit that it is hard to communicate when Pant is sticking to a method that has brought him all the success, the keeper-batter seemed to have gotten the message. From the time he walked out to bat on Friday, Pant was hell-bent on one thing — do not do something that leads to his downfall at the wrong time.
Pant’s first boundary came when Cummins strayed on the pads when he had faced seven deliveries. A long while later, he hit the second with a cut off Starc. By that time, he had already faced 50 deliveries. He did try to charge Cummins but bottom-edged the ball that almost backspinned on its way towards the stumps. That was that. Pant seemed firm on curbing his natural instincts, which he would admit later being not easy, and just bat time.
It made sense in the context of things with the pitch having lush grass cover and the ball seaming around even during the second session. So, Pant decided to defend everything that came his way until something was on the slot. The only other occasion where he charged at a bowler was against debutant Beau Webster and smashed him into the stands.
In Sydney, it was a case of asking Pant to play sensibly and he was actually doing that. Yet, it made one wonder how much it would have worked and how quickly Pant could have turned things around on a surface like this by taking on the Australian bowlers rather than letting someone like Webster bowl at less than two runs per over.
To understand the nature of the innings, here is a fact. It was the first time Pant scored 40 or more in a Test innings with a strike rate that is less than 46. On Friday, he batted at 40.81. The last and only time he batted at a strike rate lower than 50 and scored a fifty was at The Oval against England in 2021. In fact, the only time he played more balls than Friday (98) and batted at a lower strike rate was in the second innings of Melbourne four days ago. He faced 104 balls and scored just 30 runs at 28.84.
However, all everyone remembered was how he got out on the final day. To be fair it was the dismissal that triggered the collapse. For Pant, however, the intention was clear. In Melbourne, considering the situation and the target that was in front, Pant decided to go for the shot. Here, it was different.
“In this inning, I was not in a frame of mind where I wanted to take charge of the game. Because the wicket was doing too much and the kind of situation we were in. And while playing inside I felt like I could play a little bit of defensive cricket. Whatever the game asked me to do on that given day, that's what I tried to do and that was the mindset,” Pant said after the day's play in Sydney. “I would say there might be a 50-50 chance which I could have taken early on in this inning but sometimes you have to play more secure cricket, especially the way the wicket was behaving, we knew that if we give one more wicket here we might lose 2-3 in quick succession. So that was the idea behind the way I was playing,” he added.
The bottom line, however, is whether it bore fruit. Pant batted for 98 balls for a 40 before getting out trying to pull Boland. India got out for 185 on a pitch where Pant said 220-230 would have been par. How this match plays out is yet to be seen but more importantly, India need to figure out how to make the most of Pant the Test batter. For there is no one like him and he has not been able to do what he could and has in the past.
