It took Rishabh Pant a long time, exactly 629 days, and a longer journey to once again rise from the ashes. But, the fiery Indian wicketkeeper-batter sure did so, as he smashed his way in classic Pant fashion to a century on his comeback to Test cricket on Saturday.
Starting the day off together, the Indian pair of Shubman Gill and Rishabh Pant dominated the Bangladesh bowlers with a perfect mix of clinicality and aggression to reach their respective centuries.
Pant moved around the crease like a trapeze artist, and his scooped six over fine leg off Mahmud and his trademark one-handed six down the ground off Mehidy Hasan Miraz enthralled the Chepauk crowd.
When he finally reached his scintillating century, the moment was visibly momumental for Pant, as he stood near the middle of the pitch with closed eyes, an upward tilted head and a raised bat – offering a silent prayer, perhaps, to the Lord above for returning life and cricket to him.
Gill, who played alongside the batter to add 167 runs on the board together, witnessed it firsthand, and spoke on the significance of the moment, reinstating that there will be more to come from the comeback man.
“It’s probably going to be a feature for many years to come. Yeah, definitely,” stated Gill at a post-match persser.
“I have spent a lot of time with him on and off the field. Watching him score his first 50 and his first 100 after his comeback gives me so much pleasure because I have seen him work so hard for it when he was coming back from the injury. I think he also must be feeling really good.”
Gill, who came back with a vengeance in the second innings after his duck earlier and silenced his critics with a sensational century of his own, also spoke about the duo’s gameplan prior to opening the day with the bat.
“We spoke about trying to spend a little bit more time today of the extra moisture in the wicket. But once we played 3-4 overs, then we were trying to dominate because it was not really about runs for us at that point. It was more about how we wanted to give a certain amount of time for our bowlers to bowl,” stated Gill.
Chasing a mammoth 515 runs, Bangladesh showed some spunk in their second innings to reach 158 for four when play was called off at 4.25 pm due to bad light. They still need a whopping 357 runs for the result to be in their favour.
(with agency inputs)
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