Rishabh Pant’s chaotic brilliance | Sports News,The Indian Express

Unlike most batsmen, Rishabh Pant rarely shadow-bats between balls. Rather, he surveys the field, like a sentinel posted in an outpost to sniff out danger. Except that Pant is not looking to defuse any threat, but instigate some of his own. He is not jotting mental notes of the gaps, or the number of fielders on the ropes, or second-guessing the bowler’s intentions. He is just figuring out the stroke that could bring him the maximum gain. He takes a mental snapshot of the shot, traces its path in his mind, shakes his head, shrugs his shoulders, smiles a half-smile and takes his guard.
The plan could change in the wink of an eye it takes the ball to leave the bowler’s palms and reach him. But more often than not, he plays the shot he wants to play, the shot he has already decided on. The shot that he has snap-shot when scanning the field. He might be premeditating — batting at the greatest level is part instinct and part planning — but he has nuanced the art of premeditating. Even if he realises that he has misjudged, he goes with the stroke with a streak of insouciance reminiscent of Virender Sehwag, making subtle adjustments in accomplishing his end.

Like when he preempted to charge down the track against Suranga Lakmal. The bowler, realising Pant’s intentions, widened the line of the ball and pulled the length back a fraction. But Pant did not change his shot; he just decelerated, waited for the ball and threw himself at it, generating the power from his hands and a stable base. The followthrough is not copybook – hands one way, back leg in the air, the body arching, almost slumping onto the ground. But who cares about aesthetics when you have the power and free-spiritedness like Pant. And an incredible will for the boundary — he struck seven fours and two sixes in a chaotic 50 (completing the milestone in 28 balls), the fastest ever an Indian in Test cricket. He was chaotic, yet brilliant. Chaotic brilliance sums up the crux of his batting.

Rishabh Pant’s 50 off 31 balls today. #INDvsSL pic.twitter.com/7GZvm50r3Y
— One Handed Six Academy (@1handed_6) March 13, 2022
Shots of all hues flew across the ground to loud cheers; thunderous drives, wild heaves, agricultural mows, sweep, reverse-sweeps, cut from the stumps (it doesn’t matter that he had perished in the first innings playing the same stroke, a suicidal one on a surface with variable bounce; it’s this daring that makes him), slashes and chops. Everything seemed a blur of boundaries under the twilight skies. He furnished India with a wild, unstoppable momentum, and needless to say, crushed the spirit of the sapped Lankans and sucked the last drop of hope and fight in them. Batters like him devastate teams, leave them destroyed.

FIFTY!@RishabhPant17 surpasses Kapil Dev to score the fastest 50 an Indian in Test cricket. It has come off 28 deliveries.
Take a bow, Rishabh 👏💪💥
Live – https://t.co/t74OLq7xoO #INDvSL @Paytm pic.twitter.com/YcpJf2sp2H
— BCCI (@BCCI) March 13, 2022
Though the knock would not make a decisive difference towards the course of India’s victory, which was more or less guaranteed even before he strode out at the score of 116 for 3, with a hefty overall lead of 259, cameos like these embellish his reputation, weave the folklore. He will be feared; he is already feared. He will not just haunt the mind of his adversaries, but inhabit it and influence their tactics and judgements. They will, before making every step, factor in the Pant factor, the irresible destruction he could wreak.

That six.#RishabhPant pic.twitter.com/6Ln8Y5GKxZ
— Rishabh Daily (@rishabhdaily) March 13, 2022
Before declaring, teams will think twice or thrice about the Pant factor; before they enforce the follow-on, they will weigh the danger he poses. He becomes a psychological burden for opponents, mostly captains. You could plan for him, sometimes he could be baited; but there are times when he tears your best-laid plans into the rubbish bin. Tim Paine will tell you how he made his target of 328 look silly in the end in the Gabba fortress. Or the way he brutalised James Anderson in Ahmedabad. No one had then weighed in the Pant threat. They soon would.
India’s Rishabh Pant celebrates scoring fifty runs during the second day of the second cricket test match between India and Sri Lanka in Bengaluru, India, Sunday, March 13, 2022. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)
Such knocks — and the knock on Sunday — will only burnish his reputation. This pushes the opponent to the defensive even before the first ball has been bowled, or the player has walked onto the field. As were Sri Lanka when he walked out to bat. Immediately, they stationed three fielders deep on the leg side — a long-on, a deep midwicket and a deep square-leg. Ridiculing the field, he bludgeoned his first boundary through the gap between long-on and deep midwicket. Pure self-belief. Another day, he could have holed out, but that’s the risk that comes with the fear he provokes.

A select few could claim to gnaw at the opponent’s mind. Sehwag was one. Brian Lara was another. Though it’s preposterous to compare Pant to them, he has that capacity to occupy a team’s mind .
Similarly, he emboldens his team as well. His batting colleagues are aware of someone who could counterpunch, someone who could take the game away in an hour or two, someone who could change the match, and in the end win the game. This unburdens them, more so in the rich vein of form he has struck in recent times. His last four innings read thus: 100 not out off 139, 96 off 97, 39 off 26 and 50 off 31. These are staggering numbers. He now averages 40 at a strike-rate of 70. Both would daunt teams.

As significantly, through these knocks that vindicated his approach, he has cracked the method that suits him best, that makes him the deadliest . Often in the past, he had tried, futilely, to squeeze in a bone of caution to his game, scratching and scraping around, looking to survive. He seems to have shed such artificial ambitions, and in the process discovered an irresible X factor for his team and become a psychological burden for his opponents.