OLIVER HOLT: The untameable beauty of Rishabh Pant’s batting is a joy

In the time of his recovery, in the slow months of physical rehabilitation following the car crash in December 2022 that nearly claimed his career and his life, Rishabh Pant found a kind of solace in sitting in front of a television screen and watching England’s Bazball revolution gather pace.

Pant, India’s swashbuckling wicketkeeper, their great entertainer, their court jester, was out of the game for 14 months after he suffered serious injuries in the smash on the Delhi to Roorkee road, and the 2023 Ashes series gave him some relief among the pain and the boredom of his long rehabilitation.

‘Because England have started playing in a certain fashion, something I am used to playing,’ he said in an interview last year, ‘Rohit Sharma says we will also play Rishball. He says, “You play that anyway, but we will get others also to follow you”.’

On the fourth day of a compelling first Test between England and India, Bazball stood at a crossroads in its evolution, not quite sure whether to advance or retreat, and in the vacuum created by its sudden uncertainty, Rishball and its eponymous protagonist seized the day.

Rarely, in fact, has one man dominated a Test match as completely and as joyfully and as exuberantly as Pant has dominated this game at Headingley, both with the unconventional, untameable beauty of his batting and the sheer, irrepressible force of his personality. And that’s before we mention the two catches he took to dismiss Ollie Pope and Ben Stokes in England’s first innings.

We can fete Pant, 27, as a clown prince and laugh at some of his more outlandish antics like the falling ramp shot he tried to play against Brydon Carse on Monday but that is also to do him a disservice. No clown prince makes cricket history the way Pant has made history here.

Pant scored a magnificent 134 in India’s first innings, a masterpiece that included six sixes and 12 fours, a forward flip to celebrate his century and enough memories to last a lifetime for the thousands of spectators who packed inside Yorkshire’s ground to see it.

Monday’s 118 was marginally more restrained, especially in a morning session when he and KL Rahul dutifully and slowly built India’s lead without losing a wicket. After lunch, though, Pant cut loose again.

Successive sixes off the bowling of the beleaguered Shoaib Bashir, both slapped over mid-on at the Football Stand End, were probably the highlights, although a four crashed through backward point from a wide ball by Josh Tongue was another treat.

There seems to be a kind of camaraderie between Pant and Stokes. Game recognising game, perhaps. Cricketers who love the game, competitors, men who sense each other’s spirit and indomitability, players who respect the beauty of the kind of explosive entertainment each can deliver.

So when Pant approached his hundred and edged a shot airily past first slip off Tongue, Stokes ran his hand through his hair ruefully and managed a thin smile. He knew he was witnessing a man who was letting his instincts guide him ever onwards.

When Pant reached his second century of the game, there was no forward flip this time, even though former India captain Sunil Gavaskar, high in the stands, urged him to do one.

For his second century, Pant satisfied himself with a salute to the dressing room. When he was eventually caught in the deep by Zak Crawley off Bashir, India were in control.

The scale of his achievement in Leeds should not be underestimated. He became the first India player ever to score a century in each innings against England and only the second wicketkeeper to score two centuries in a match. The other was Andy Flower, formerly England’s coach, who hit twin centuries for Zimbabwe in a Test match against South Africa in Harare in 2001. Pant has now scored five Test centuries against England, too. No wicketkeeper has scored more against a single opponent.

So even if he is sometimes criticised in India for giving his wicket away too cheaply — Gavaskar once called one of his dismissals ‘stupid, stupid, stupid’ — Pant is compiling a body of work that demands he be taken seriously at exactly the same time he be revered for his glorious individuality.

Even when India were supposed to be playing cautiously on Monday morning, there were times when Pant could not help but revert to character. Once, he swung and missed at a ball so wildly that he almost knocked himself off his feet. After his comically miscued effort at that diving ramp shot off Carse, which resulted in a rather confused England review for lbw, even though Pant had been practically horizontal at the time, he gave himself a lecture out in the middle.

Sky’s cricket coverage, outstanding as usual, picked him up, talking to himself in Hindi. ‘If I play with a straight bat, I can still middle it,’ Pant was saying as if there was an angel on one shoulder and a devil on another. ‘Don’t try to do too much.’

It is not the first time an English audience has seen him in full flow, of course. At Edgbaston, in July 2022, five months before his car crash, he took the Bazballers on at their own game and smashed 146 in 111 balls in the first innings of India’s seven wicket defeat in the fifth Test.

This performance in Leeds, though, was something else. This was another level. This was a man, newly ennobled as India’s vice-captain, who was intent on taking the game away from England and proving he could do things his way and still prosper.

In the months after his car crash, Pant spoke of the reprieve he had been given, of the escape that he had had. ‘I felt my time in this world was over,’ he said. ‘I know I’m fortunate to have a second life.’

That’s part of the joy in watching him play now. There’s something visceral about it and something carefree. To watch him thrill and entertain us is to watch a cricketer who has taken that second chance with both hands and is wringing every last drop of joy from it.