Rishabh Pant was putting on a belligerent exhibition on Saturday when the Indian batters collectively misfired against the England seamers shortly before Lunch, ceding the momentum they had built after starting the day at 359 for three. With a string of batters falling before him, Pant attempted to shed some of his attacking instincts before falling prey to a ‘brainfade’ moment and dismissal to England pacer Josh Tongue at Leeds on Saturday.
Pant had the Headingley crowd on the edge of their seats up until that moment after clattering his seventh Test century with a thunderous six and surpassing MS Dhoni as India’s most successful wicket-keeper batter in terms of hundreds. Pant also surpassed the former India captain’s Test sixes tally as he smacked six maximums to jump to third on the all-time charts for India with 79 sixes.
Former India wicket-keeper Dinesh Karthik brought head coach Gautam Gambhir into the picture, observing that a wrong message was passed onto Pant after the quick dismissals of Shubman Gill (147) and Karun Nair (0). Karthik said that Pant was perhaps asked to curb his shot-making, eventually leading to the perplexing leave that cost him his wicket.
“Very interesting that when a message was sent out to Rishabh Pant, it curbed his style of play. He was just very carefree with his stroke making, and yet the feeling is that a message was sent to tell him to calm down. It doesn’t work for certain players, I guess,” said Karthik on Sky Sports.
Karthik said that Gambhir will need to understand how to communicate according to the individual’s style.
“As a coach, it’s completely understandable when you want to get a message across to the batter. But over time, you realise, for certain players, how you send that message becomes very important, what is the tone, what is the language used that gets the best out of the batter,” he added.
“Maybe with Rishabh Pant, it needs to be a different way in which you get things done,” said Karthik.
Pant had drawn the ire of expers and former cricketers with his shot-making in Australia. In the fourth Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), the left-hander went to attack a delivery, miscued his shot and gave a catch to third man. The dismissal angered the legendary Gavaskar who was in the commentary booth, shouting ‘stupid, stupid, stupid!’. Gavaskar was, however, a happy man at Leeds on Saturday when he Pant smoked his way through to an enthralling hundred as he amended his words from Australia in jubilation, describing Pant ‘Superb, superb, superb’.
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