Rishabh Pant has done some outrageous things on the cricket field and off it. They don’t come close to coming out to bat – in all consciousness, possibly against medical advice, or at least despite being given the option not to do so – with a broken foot. Surely, you felt, it was too outrageous even for him This was not Rishabh Pant coming out at No. 11 trying to draw a Test or something that desperate.
This was 314 for 6, at a time when the ball was doing things both laterally and vertically, which led experts to believe India didn’t need to be desperate, that they could get enough for these conditions even without Rishabh Pant having to risk an even worse injury.
Rishabh Pant has done the audacious, the ridiculous, and the unforgettable often enough for it to no longer surprise. At Lord’s last week, Rishabh Pant batted with a damaged finger and nearly dragged India back with a gutsy 74 before a run-out cut him short. At the SCG in 2021, he played through a bruised elbow to score a match-saving 97.
But what he did in Manchester may have topped them all. Yesterday, Rishabh Pant under-edged a reverse-sweep off a fast bowler onto his own foot, fracturing a bone, and still returned the next day to complete one of the most remarkable half-centuries in Test cricket.
India were 314 for 6 at 12:28 PM on Thursday (July 24) when the sixth wicket fell. It was a good total under heavy skies, the ball still hooping around corners. The match wasn’t in crisis. And yet, Old Trafford rose in applause whenRishabh Pant emerged from the pavilion, limping down the stairs toward the middle.
Rishabh Pant got injured on Day 1 batting on 37
The fourth Test between India and England at Manchester saw Rishabh Pant’s courageous return to the field. Despite suffering a fractured toe on Day 1, the Indian wicketkeeper-batter walked out to bat on Day 2, limping in pain.It was a display of heart, grit and commitment to the team. The crowd at Old Trafford rose in applause, but it was the reaction from former cricketers that truly underlined the magnitude of Pant’s act.
Rishabh Pant’s injury occurred late on Day 1, during the 68th over of India’s innings, when he tried a reverse sweep off Chris Woakes. The ball struck his right foot hard after an inside edge, and he collapsed in visible agony. Reports later confirmed a fracture on his fifth metatarsal, with swelling the size of a table tennis ball. He had to be taken off the field in a cart and was ruled out for wicketkeeping duties.
But by the time Shardul Thakur was dismissed on Day 2, Rishabh Pant stunned the crowd by slowly walking out to bat again. He received a standing ovation at Old Trafford, and the crowd’s cheer was matched by online support from Indian greats.
No injury stopped Maverick Rishabh Pant to score a memorable 54 at Manchester
Rishabh Pant hadn’t arrived at the ground with the Indian team in the morning. He’d gone to the hospital to assess if he could bat. Rishabh Pant came back wearing a moon boot and leaning on a crutch. Not long after, he was spotted in India whites. Surely, he wasn’t thinking of resuming his knock on 37, one abruptly halted the previous day by searing pain and an immediate swelling that pointed at a fracture.
But Rishabh Pant had made up his mind. There was risk. The injury could worsen. Another blow could be far more serious. Sure enough, one delivery spat up awkwardly, bounced short of his boot, and thudded into his pad. Only then did he start shifting his front foot out of the way. Until then, he hadn’t even bothered.
Rishabh Pant’s health and well-being is one thing; equally, it didn’t make sense in the context of the match. India still had a recognised batter at the other end. Wouldn’t Rishabh Pant, who couldn’t even put his foot down not long ago, result in losing out on many singles And perhaps the flow in Washington’s batting.
Then Rishabh Pant even started hobbling the singles. He took 14 of them during his extended stay at the wicket. At the end of the opening day, England spinner Liam Dawson, who had seen the pain Rishabh Pant was in, said he couldn’t see a way Pant could play any part in the rest of the game. Once England recovered from the initial shock of first seeing Rishabh Pant come out and then seeing him take his singles, they did what competitive teams would do: work on his injury by either bowling wide or aiming at the toe again.
Rishabh Pant couldn’t put weight on his right leg. And yet he ran, or rather, hobbled, 14 singles – both for himself and his partner. England tried to make life harder: they started bowling wide, then Stokes tested him with inswingers tailing in dangerously close to the boot. Still, Pant hung in there. He picked up a slower ball from Archer and launched it over the rope, drawing level with Virender Sehwag for most sixes (90) in Tests by an Indian. Then came the punchiest moment of all: a check drive off Stokes, through extra cover for four to reach his fifty.
There is only so much painkiller you can give a human, let one who is going out to face Test-level fast bowling and needs his wits about him. In that mad mix of pain and painkillers, into a mad extension of a mad innings, Rishabh Pant was good enough to pick a Jofra Archer slower ball and pull it for a six. To block a wide full ball in a way that it flew off the bat for four to bring up a fifty. Pant made Archer produce a replica of the absolute seed he bowled at him at Lord’s: angling in from around the wicket and then seaming away to hit the top of off.
Eventually, it took a brute from Archer to end the innings, angled in from wide of the crease and straightening past Pant’s outside edge to send the off-stump cartwheeling. At 2.08 PM, he began hobbling back to another rousing ovation from the crowd and pats on the back from Joe Root and Brydon Carse. He’d finished with 54 off 75 balls, 17 of those runs scored after the fracture.
It was a display of heart, grit and commitment to the team. The crowd at Old Trafford rose in applause, but it was the reaction from former cricketers that truly underlined the magnitude of Rishabh Pant’s act. Former Indian wicketkeeper Deep Dasgupta couldn’t mince his words calling this man a mad genious and was in awe of his enthralling courage,grit and determination.
It was so nice to see Rishabh Pant take the field- Deep Dasgupta
Former Indian wicketkeeper Deep Dasgupta was among the firsts to salute Pant’s heroic decision to bat through pain. Deep Dasgupta said he never thought he’d witness an act of courage in Indian cricket that could match Anil Kumble bowling with a broken jaw in 2002.
But watching Rishabh Pant hobble out with a fractured toe changed his mind. “Just Rishabh being Rishabh,” he wrote, admiring the left-hander’s natural instinct to fight, no matter the odds.
“It was so nice to see Rishabh take the field. Heard this morning that he might not. If it is a fracture and he has still come out it is a superhuman effort. I remember in 2002 Anil Kumble bowled with a broken jaw. He dismissed Brian Lara as well. But after that I thought I will not see anything like that on the cricket field again. But when Rishabh batted today it was right up there,” he said on his YouTube channel DeepDasGupta official.
Deep Dasgupta also praised Rishabh Pant for setting an example as a vice captain of the team , putting a team ahead of anything else even a personal threatening injury.
“He is also setting an example as the vice-captain that how this young team will play. When the series and Test match is on the line, it does not matter if you are injured or not, the team and effort comes first. This is a statement more than anything else. So proud of not just Rishabh but this team as well,” he added.
Rishabh Pant has been in exceptional form throughtout this series. He had scored 479 runs from seven innings at an average of 68.42, with two hundreds and three half centuries carrying a crucial role at No 5. posiion for India.
Rishabh Pant resumed his innings on 37 and was given a loud applause by the crowd as he walked out to bat on Day 2. England captain Ben Stokes was consistently targeting his foot but the southpaw stood tall and completed his half-century with a help of a massive six and a boundary through the off side. He was finally dismissed on 54 after Jofra Archer thrashed his stumps.
During his innings, he also levelled with Virender Sehwag for the most sixes by an India batter in Tests, having smashed 90 maximums in his career. Meanwhile, India were all out for 358 in the first innings as Ben Stokes registered his fifth five-wicket haul. In reply, England finished Day 2 on 225/2, trailing India by 133 runs with Joe Root (11*) and Ollie Pope (20*) at the crease.
England leads the test series 2-1 heading into Manchester and at the end of Day 2 looking strong to extend their hold over India but besides that What would be remembered at Manchester would be the nervy steely mind that one man had to put his body on the line for the Nation and that maverick is Rishabh Pant.
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