Recently, India’s wicket-keeper batsman Rishabh Pant, who was injured in a car accident, was airlifted to Mumbai. The BCCI medical team in Mumbai will treat him. According to media reports, Pant will be away from the ground for 5 to 6 months.
In such a situation, he will not be able to play the 4 Test series against Australia in India. If Team India reaches the final of the World Test Championship, Pant will not be there in that match as well.
Team India will find it difficult to make up for them in these matches. In the last 2 years, he has proved to be the biggest match-winning batsman of the Test team. During this, he has given victory to India by playing many useful innings on important occasions in the country and abroad.
Pant played these innings on those occasions when our top order failed miserably. Veterans like Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma continued to be out of form or were out of the team due to injury, but Pant did not let anyone miss them.
Scored more Test runs abroad than Babar
Pant has played 25 Tests abroad since his debut. In this, he scored 1632 runs at an average of 38.85. Since his debut, only Joe Root of England, Cheteshwar Pujara of India, and Ben Stokes of England could score the most runs abroad.
Pant is at number four. Pakistan captain Babar Azam, who scored the most Test runs in 2022, played 21 Tests abroad during this period. In this, he scored 1589 runs with the help of 3 centuries and 13 fifty.
Since his debut, only Cheteshwar Pujara could score more runs for India abroad than he. Pujara scored 1887 runs in 26 matches. Virat Kohli’s number comes after Pant. He scored 1399 runs in 22 matches.
Top wicketkeepers since the debut
Pant made his debut for India on 18 August 2018. Since then, Rishabh is at the top among the wicketkeepers who have scored the most Test runs. He scored 2271 runs in 33 matches. In these 5 centuries and 11 fifty came.
He played innings of more than 90 runs 6 times in 11 Fifty. From his debut till January 4, 2023, no wicket-keeper batsman in the world could score more runs than him.
At number two, Sri Lanka’s Niroshan Dickwella has scored 726 runs less than Pant in 31 matches. Dickwella scored 1545 runs with the help of 13 Fifty. He is followed by Quinton de Kock of South Africa, Mohammad Rizwan of Pakistan, and Liton Das of Bangladesh.
Best Indian wicketkeeper batsman ever
In just 25 Test matches abroad, he left behind India’s last 30 wicketkeepers. As a wicketkeeper, he has scored 4 centuries abroad. Prior to that, India tried 30 wicketkeepers in overseas Tests, including former captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Nayan Mongia, and Wriddhiman Saha.
All together played 260 matches. But no one could score more than a century in his career. Even these 30 players together could score only 4 centuries abroad. That much was done by Pant alone. The importance of Pant’s all-around performance is clearly visible from these figures.
In such a situation, it would not be wrong to say that a better Test wicket-keeper batsman could not come in India till now.
Pant’s test record in India?
Pant has played only 8 Tests in India so far. In these too he scored a century and 6 fifties. Recently, in the 2 Test series against Bangladesh, he scored 148 runs at an average of 49.33.
In these, innings of 46 runs on 45 balls and 93 runs on 104 balls came on important occasions. During this, his strike rate was 91.35. This shows that Pant is not less than anyone in the test of Asia.