MANCHESTER: RISHABH Pant's injury is one of the biggest worries for India ahead of the fourth Test here in Manchester. Currently second on the list of top run getters with 425, the 27-year-old southpaw from Delhi has been indispensable for the team in the past few years, especially during their away tours.
Be it his shows Down Under in 2018 and 2021 that helped India clinch the Border-Gavaskar Trophy or dominant performances at home against England across two series. His ton in Cape Town, South Africa in 2022 where the next highest score was 29 or his 146 off just 111 balls in the last of the five-match series in England in 2022.
Not long ago, he became the first Indian wicketkeeper-batter to score twin centuries in a single Test in England when he scored 134 off 178 & 118 off 140 in the first match in Headingley. Most importantly, he is on joint second to former India captain Rahul Dravid as far as Test centuries are concerned on these shores. The former has scored six while Pant along with Sachin Tendulkar, KL Rahul and Dilip Vengsarkar is second with four centuries on English soil.
While his two hundreds in Leeds could not fetch India the win in the first match, his 65 off 58 balls in the second innings of the next Test at Edgbaston helped the team declare on 427/7 setting up a 608-run target for the opponents. In the end, it proved too much.
However, an injury to his left index finger in the Lord's Test meant Pant had to walk off the field and he couldn't keep for the remainder of the match with substitute Dhruv Jurel replacing him. Despite immense pain, he scored 74 in the first innings as the visitors managed to level England's first innings total. He was undone by pacer Jofra Archer's brilliance in the second innings.
Pant might have been relieved of wicketkeeping responsibility at Lord's but the injury hampered him to a great extent while batting. He overcame the pain in the first essay but in the next he looked less convincing and pulled his bottom hand off the bat four times in an Archer over where the pacer was bowling at around 144 kmph. Even when India held their first practice session at Beckenham, on the outskirts of London on Thursday, Pant did not train. He instead only ran during the session.
Skipper Shubman Gill was optimistic when asked about Pant's fitness after the Lord's loss but the first nets after the match presented a different picture. With the match scheduled to begin on Wednesday, Pant and the team management still have enough time to think over various combinations given the injury.
Assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate also said as much when asked about Pant's status. "He will bat in Manchester before the Test," Ten Doeschate told the reporters after the training session. "I don't think he's (Gill) going to keep Rishabh out of the Test, no matter what. He batted with quite a lot of pain in the third Test and it's only going to get easier and easier on his finger. Keeping is obviously the last part of the process to make sure that he can keep."
The former Dutch all-rounder in a way hinted that Pant could even play as a batter if the pain does not subside. If that happens, Jurel could get in the playing XI as the wicketkeeper replacing Karun Nair, who so far has had a middling show with the bat. "We don't want to go through that again where we have to replace the keeper halfway through in the innings. But he is rested today (Thursday). We're just trying to give the finger as long as possible and hopefully he's good to go in Manchester in the first training session. So he (Jurel) is in the equation. But I mean, obviously, Rishabh's fatigue, he plays the next Test and does both."
As Ten Doeschate said, India can only hope for Pant to recover fully as they cannot afford their star batter half-fit when the team takes the field for what's a must-not lose game for the tourists.
