India will hope a return to The Gabba can inspire batter to reprise past heroics
BRISBANE: Now, as then, India appear bereft of hope heading into a Gabba showdown. Now, as then, India will look to their miracle man to deliver.
In the 20-odd months Rishabh Pant spent away from the longer format while recovering from his car accident, there hasn’t been a Test match played in which his absence wasn’t a talking point.
It is perhaps once in a generation that a batter redefines the bounds of the possible. For this era, Pant is the man and Gabba was the ground.
To understand the true impact of Pant in red-ball cricket, it’s worth revisiting Jan 2021, the later part of the Australian summer, and the 138-ball 89 not out at the venue which helped a depleted India chase down 328, 324 of those runs on the final day.
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Pant was 23 then, just 15 Tests old, and his knock helped break Australia’s 32-year undefeated streak at the ground.
That time, India still needed 161 runs, with 56.4 overs having played out, when Pant walked in to bat. In the final session, from about 37 overs, India needed 158. Cheteshwar Pujara importantly helped one end firm, but his eventual strike rate of 26.54 before Pat Cummins got him out with the second new ball would have, at best, helped save the game, not win it. It did help take the game deep, though, along with Shubman Gill’s 91.
A few overs before that second new ball was due, Pant went on the rampage, hitting Lyon straight out of the ground, slashing the likes of Starc past backward point, hooking Cummins for six, cheekily notching up boundaries over the slip cordon and generally embracing a limited-overs approach which knocked the wind of Australia’s pace battery.
It was an onslaught not yet considered within the realms of the possible in a Test match chase.
The knock predated Brendon McCullum‘s appointment in May 2022 as England’s Test coach and the start of the ‘Bazball‘ era of consciously adopting a high-risk, high-strike-rate batting approach to stir things up in the red-ball game.
Perhaps it’s not presumptuous to say England doesn’t own the copyright to ‘Bazball’, Pant does. In his wake have followed the Yashasvi Jaiswals and Nitish Kumar Reddys, who have shed the diffidence of earlier eras away from home.
Rohit Sharma said so, in as many words, in March earlier this year in Dharamshala, as the home series against England was winding down to a close. Ben Duckett had made the outrageous assumption, no doubt tongue firmly in cheek, that Yashasvi Jaiswal’s breezy daddy hundreds were a result of ‘Bazball’ rubbing off on India’s youngsters. “There was a guy called Rishabh Pant in our team, probably Ben Duckett hasn’t seen him play,” Rohit chuckled.
Now, as in 2021, the onus is on India’s young breed of batters to bail them out of a rut, especially with some seniors struggling for form. Can Pant alter the course of a series which appears to be tilting Australia’s way?
In 2021, Pant was breezy but he wasn’t looking to be in a frenzy all the time. His eventual strike rate of 64.49 was enough to win India the game. It is this balance that he has struggled to recapture this time.
No doubt, his long absence, the severe injuries he picked up in the accident and subsequent major operations, have all had a role to play in this. Perhaps he is also putting too much pressure on himself?
Since Pant announced his Test comeback with a century against Bangladesh in Chennai, his returns have been inconsistent, apart from the 99 in Bengaluru followed by 60 and 64 against New Zealand in Mumbai. After that Chennai ton, Rohit had said, “We always knew what Rishabh could do with the bat. It was just about getting him back and giving him that game time.”
In Australia, Pant’s scores read 37 and 1 in Perth and 21 and 28 in Adelaide, where in the second innings under lights, his electrifying charge against Scott Boland became a talking point, including an astounding reverse-scoop off the same pacer.
The next morning, though, in better batting conditions, he lasted just five more balls and looked fidgety. Was it the approach India needed at that time? Isn’t Pant trusting his previously sound defensive game the way he used to?
With the entire lineup floundering apart from Nitish Kumar Reddy, captain Rohit wasn’t mentioning anyone in particular when he said after the Adelaide defeat, “It’s important in this short time that we have before the next Test to figure out certain things about our own selves. We hope everyone stands up to that challenge. It sometimes happens that you’re trying everything and it still doesn’t work out. We’ve had a lot of conversations about that in the group.”
The glimpses of brilliance Pant showed in Adelaide may not be enough if India are to pull through this time around at the Gabba. Then again, the Pant of 2024 is in a very different place from the Pant of 2021.
Amid all the expectation of another miracle, it’s worth recalling that it’s a miracle that Pant is back playing top-flight cricket.
