By The Sydney Test match could be the final struggle over Rishabh Pant. How he should play, how he should act, whether he is following the correct directions and listening to the appropriate voices. Almost every single Rishabh Pant seems to be fighting a moral battle. This particular Test match felt like a true battle in which he had to survive.
He got hit first, then he struck. That’s the Battle of Rishabh Pant.
After blocking, playing, missing, and being struck in the pad several times, Rishabh Pant opted to run down the wicket at Pat Cummins and hit the ball back down the ground with a flat bat. We’ve seen him play that shot numerous times previously. However, when he came down, he hit the ball directly into the pitch with no idea where it was going.
The next question you had to ask was how much of this was due to the pitch being really difficult to bat on. And how much of this was down to Gautam Gambhir telling him to play to the conditions more? Also, how much of it was due to external pressure—Sunil Gavaskar and everyone else on social media—to play this way?
Rishabh Pant’s batting appears to be nearly pure offensive genius, but everyone is constantly attaching their own fears and dreams to him, attempting to shape him into something else rather than allowing him to simply be the player he is supposed to be.
The next question you had to ask was how much of this was due to the pitch being really difficult to bat on. And how much of this was down to Gautam Gambhir telling him to play to the conditions more? Also, how much of it was due to external pressure—Sunil Gavaskar and everyone else on social media—to play this way?
Rishabh Pant’s batting appears to be nearly pure offensive genius, but everyone is constantly attaching their own fears and dreams to him, attempting to shape him into something else rather than allowing him to simply be the player he is supposed to be.
The most plausible explanation was that there were no other options for playing on the first day. The wicket moved sideways, up and down, and the ball did not come on. So, Rishabh Pant basically decided that he had attempted to smash the ball and it hadn’t worked; he tried to strike the ball and could hardly do it, so he would just stay in there for as long as possible.
However, when Rishabh Pant plays anything other than attacking cricket, we begin to question if the voices have an issue here. And, to be honest, the voices about him have been as loud as they have ever been in recent Tests.
This was a man who was attempting to draw a Test match and may have still hoped to win it at the MCG during the second innings. While attempting to do so, he received a half-tracker from Travis Head and hit one of the longest boundaries in cricket history, only to be caught on it.
If he was still thinking about winning, this was a ball that deserved to be hit, if not necessarily to that boundary or in the air. If he was playing for a draw, that was one of the strangest dismissals you’ll ever see.
Of course, it followed Australia’s first innings strategy of setting up the field with a specific trap in mind. If he was going to slog across the line as he came down the wicket, they had a deep third, and if he tried the ramps, that fielder may be involved twice. However, as he was batting well near the conclusion of a Scott Boland spell, he decided to try that shot and hit the ball straight into the trap.
Sunil Gavaskar was so furious by that shot that he told Rishabh Pant not to return to the change room. But we’ve watched him play that shot countless times. We’ve seen him take a variety of chances, including sweeping quick bowlers and facing three, four, or even five fielders on the boundary against spinners.
