Pitch-perfect Rishabh Pant beats England to a pulp

With a devastating 101, Pant applied what looks to be a terminal blow to England’s chances of salvaging anything from the fourth Test and with it the series

India batsman Rishabh Pant celebrates his century (Getty Images)

He warned Australia in Sydney with 97 before knocking them down in Brisbane with 89 not out to take the series. And after the set-ups of 91 and 58 not out in the two matches in Chennai, Ahmedabad was the location a 23-year-old great-in-waiting rounded out another multi-city, Tyson-esque one-two to all but claim this bout, too.

With a devastating 101, Rishabh Pant applied what looks to be a terminal blow to England’s hopes in the fourth Test. What ambitions they had of squaring this series now lay in tatters. A third Test century from a walking, screeching highlight reel leaving them 89 behind on a pitch only getting tougher.

The tourists still need three more wickets befor their second innings which, beyond cutting into any Indian lead, will also serve as necessary time to recover from what befell them on day two. A miraculous innings, one which took the hosts from 80 for four and shot them to 259 for seven when it was finally over. Friday night’s sleep will be fitful, the savagery of what occurred here painfully fresh in their minds.

There is a reason Pant is regarded as the most exciting talent in the game. Make no mistake, this was no statement knock. Everyone knows who he is and what he’s about. The flair, the poise, the 64 runs are very much his ilk.

Maybe consider this as a continuation of the change he is instilling. The change in conversation he has elicited in Indian cricket both over him and how the Test format is viewed. Still through the prism of conservative values of honour and milestones: typified by legendary batsman Sunil Gavaskar, 34 Test centuries to his name, urging Pant to bat responsibly from the commentary box as three figures came within sight.

He didn’t, god bless him, getting to the landmark with a six to ensure this was not a fifth fall in the 90s. A knowing wink that honour and milestones can also get along with panache. Gavaskar was left satisfied, perhaps even won around, if only in the moment. Such ingrained thinking will take a lot longer to convert. Continuing to change matches in this fashion should do the trick.

Amid the glory, sympathy lay once more with England’s bowlers. Over the last three Tests they have been something of a vaccine for their batsman’s ills: forged from the very embarrassment inflicted upon their team by their low scores since the first Test.

Lost in the second day capitulation in the third Test was a fightback that ensured India only established a lead of 33 despite starting day two just 13 behind England’s first innings of 112 with seven wickets to play with.

And the start of this day two was no different, compiling a first a session with the ball that could arguably rank as their best this winter. Across 25.5 overs they strangled India into near submission: just 56 runs scored from a starting point of 24 for one. Jack Leach picked up Cheteshwar Pujara for a fourth time, while Ben Stokes had Virat Kohli for his second duck of the tour with steep bounce. And when James Anderson rubber-stamped his miserly work to get Ajinkya Rahane caught at slip by Stokes, taking India to lunch on 80 for four, suddenly England’s 205 all out didn’t look so bad.

At the time, the one presence of concern was Rohit Sharma. The opener’s calm throughout these weeks has been at odds with everyone else. As he rounded on a third consecutive Test with a 50-plus score, an inevitability took hold. But it was not one Stokes was willing to succumb to, and with a booming inswinger finding a gap on the inside edge to strike the right-hander in front of off-stump - umpire’s call on impact of pad and timber - Sharma was gone for 49.

Spirits were higher when Ravichandran Ashwin chipped to Ollie Pope at midwicket for Leach’s second. A lead of 59, just four wickets left to get. From an English perspective, what was not to like? Well, Pant didn’t like it, and that, really, was mattered most. As England took comfort in their nuance, Pant plotted the chaos that would make it obsolete.

Diligently, at first: moving from 30 at the time of Ashwin’s dismissal to the second-slowest 50 of his career, from 82 deliveries faced. Things might have panned out very differently had he not emerged on the right side of an LBW appeal to Dom Bess that trapped him on the back foot with 35 by his name. The projected clipping of middle and leg not enough to over-turn the “not out” decision on the field.

When the bedlam arrived at the start of the 78th over, with Pant 55 off 91, fingers around the chord that would unleash his nonsense, felt all the more pronounced because of what it ticked off. A scythe over the slips took India to 201. A pull shot through midwicket two balls later tied the scores.

Consecutive sweeps sent Root to square leg in the next over. Just one ball faced off the next over allowed some calm, but evidently it meant time at the nonstriker’s end for one final check of the real kicker to his masterplan.

What followed was a passage that perhaps words cannot do justice. A rush administered through the eyes, a hallucinogenic thrill of left-hand shapes, the highs of which won’t dampen with time. Source it how you can, by any means necessary.

A strut and clap to the first delivery with the second new ball delivered by Anderson through mid on worth the price of admission. A wider delivery carved through cover felt like mitigation for video piracy. Dragging Stokes through midwicket was post-watershed butchery of a titan finally being felled. And when Anderson was reverse-lapped over expectant slips, well, transmission from a different world altogether was causing interference. Who does *that* to *him*? England, Pant’s teammates in the wings, those associated with either side and all else in the wider game awestruck by what was unfolding in front of them.

The exclamation point was dotted with a slog sweep for six off Root taking him to a clean 100. Those last 45 runs off 24 blood-stained balls featuring eight flesh-specked boundaries. India were revived and thriving, ahead by 53. England beaten to such a pulp that it didn’t matter much when Pant cracked Anderson to midwicket at the start of the 85th over. Root, the catcher, could not bring himself to look at the ball in his hands. He and it had already seen too much.

India batsman Rishabh Pant (Getty Images)

By then, Washington Sundar had grown in stature. The raising of his bat for his own half-century from 96 a reminder he was still there, under the radar during the momentum-shifting seventh-wicket stand of 113.

Of the English casualties, the worst was undoubtedly Bess. Time spent out of the side for the last two Tests was never going to be time enough to right the off-spinners shortcomings that led to his axing. That showed with a number of full tosses. His lack of control was characterised by an 11th over which started with a full toss for the first of Sundar’s eight boundaries (so far) and finished with England’s lead cut from 50 to 40.

The two what-if moments of the Pant LBW and an overturned decision on Sundar, who remains unbeaten on 60, won’t be enough to nourish his soul. And he will have felt guilty watching on as Stokes took on the burden that should have been his with the older ball.

Stokes’s effort for 20 overs on day two was more than he had bowled in the series, just 24 hours after he had carried the batting with a top score of 55. His body and figures (22 overs and two for 73 so far) were battered as the evening wore on, likewise Anderson who saw his run column bumped up to 40 for his three wickets from 20.

The lack of a third seamer was no fault of Bess. But the collateral damage of that mistake will have consequences for him and England, maybe into the long term. For now, they are a small part of why India rallied and are seemingly on the cusp of inflicting a third demoralising defeat in succession on their opponents.