If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the ones with Rishabh Pant in them would start with "what the…" There is one depicting his reverse scoop to Scott Boland in the second innings of the Adelaide Test. He's leaning back, away from the ball. His bat is flipped, and the maker's name is facing the wrong way. A short-of-a-length delivery that would otherwise have cramped a left-hand batter gets tossed out to the boundary and there is disbelief all around.
Pant, by now, is on the floor. He had premeditated the shot. There was a touch of extra bounce. The pink ball was up where his chest would have been had he stayed still. But since he hadn't, he had a bit of distance to make up. So he increased his bat speed, went down to up and swung so hard and so fast that along with making contact with the ball, he knocked himself clean off his feet. Sprawled on his hands and knees, he watched his score tick over from 7 off 8 to 11 off 9.
The principles that used to govern batting have but a tenuous grasp of it right now. With every innings he plays, Pant is making it harder for them to hold on. He wasn't set. His team was trailing. He targeted the bowler who had picked up two of the three Indian wickets to fall, including Virat Kohli. His instinctive, imaginative strokeplay exists outside of match situations and its pull can be so powerful that sometimes what he does ends up deciding the match result.
Pant's second-innings hundred in Ahmedabad three years ago had that kind of effect. India were 146 for 6 in response to England's first-innings 205 on a pitch taking a lot of spin. He took them to 364. That innings included a reverse scoop too.
India, and even Australia, were expecting something similar from Pant on this tour. It hasn't come. He has 96 runs at an average of 19.20.
There have been moments, like the second innings in Adelaide. He made 28 off 31 with 20 of those runs coming in boundaries. That night he almost seemed desperate to do what he does naturally. A packed crowd had taken great offence to Mohammed Siraj sending off the local boy Travis Head.
Pant was one of several team-mates who rallied around Siraj, running down to the bowler from his spot behind the wicket to put an arm around him. The way he batted, certainly that first ball where he charged down the track and smacked Boland for four over cover, felt like he just didn't like what was happening to India in that Test and was going to go do something about it. Pant's rage lasted less than an hour.
"Our job here is to explain things to them again and again. We talk to them about small things like match awareness and match situation," Rohit Sharma said as he explained how he and his support staff manage their maverick wicketkeeper-batter. "We talk to them about all these things. I don't think it's necessary to complicate their plans and thought process. Rishabh knows what his expectations are. He has a lot of expectations from himself. He's working hard in his game. I think he'll do well in these two matches."
In Brisbane, Pant fell five balls after resuming from a rain break, which was his first ball after that rain break and three balls before what turned out to be the next rain break. Essentially not a great time to lose a wicket. Pat Cummins was the one who took him out. There's a little head-to-head developing there in BGT 2024: 21 runs, 41 balls, three dismissals, an average of 7. Australia's captain, who began the series looking rusty, has got on top of India's difference-maker. It's helped that they've been able to drag him to the crease while the ball is new.
Where Travis Head, a batter quite similar to Pant, has been protected by his top order, coming in when the Kookaburra has aged 35 overs, which seems to be the point where it starts to lose some of its sting but not its hardness, making it easier to play shots, Pant has had to deal with its mischief in four out of five innings. He came in during the 17th over in the first innings in Perth, the 20th and the 15th overs in Adelaide and the eighth over in Brisbane. If India could help delay Pant's arrival to a more amenable time, they might be able to get the best out of him.
"He has played only two or three Test matches here," Rohit said. "He's in good form recently. He has made good runs in India. He has a good record in Australia. After two or three Test matches, it's not right to judge him. He knows what he has to do."
At the Gabba in 2021, with a squad that was being held together by bandages and loose string, Pant had the audacity to have a go at Australia, both from behind the stumps - eight of the current squad pulled his name up when they were asked by Star Sports which Indian player sledges/banters the most - and in front of it.
That was a miracle and by definition those are quite rare, except Ahmedabad happened in less than two months, then Cape Town in less than a year. In September 2024, his first Test since the car crash that threatened to take his life, Pant walked in and scored a century. He's made people believe in miracles. One more in front of 90,000 on Boxing Day at the MCG would do quite nicely for India.