Rishabh Pant has already played innings that most cricketers don’t get to do in their lifetime. He has done it in Sydney. Gabba. Ahmedabad. All before his horrific accident. He also played in a Test where India lost despite him scoring a hundred in both innings.

LIVE: IND vs SL 1st Test – Day 4

Pant is an adventurous batsman, but he has often been criticised for risky shot selection that changed games. Going into Day 4 in Galle, India needed Pant as the package he is known for.

It hasn’t been long since he was stripped of vice-captaincy. The audacity was seen as reckless. Or, in other words, not shouldering responsibility when there was a need to. On Tuesday, Pant definitely had a responsibility. On a pitch that was showing its true nature, India needed the left-hander to be at his  adventurous best.

Pitch Reading

Having been baked under the scorching sun on Day Three, the use of the heavy roller meant the spinners were now getting more than enough help from the pitch. There was vicious turn. When the ball was new and hard, there was bounce on offer. When the ball got soft, there were deliveries that kept a bit low. With the pitch beginning to show its many faces, India needed Pant, a batsman who takes the conditions out of the equation.

And through the course of his 66 off 69 balls, Pant put India in a position of strength, with one day left. India began Day 4 with a lead of 178 runs and were in search of quick runs to set Sri Lanka a competitive fourth innings score. The lead was safe by Galle standards, as a target of 150 or above has been chased only thrice in 36 Tests. But on this surface, you couldn’t say for sure. Once the ball got soft, batsmen have shown it isn’t challenging to score off. So out came India, in search of a total that Sri Lanka can’t get past. But with rain expected to play a role in the outcome, it was pertinent that India got the runs quickly on a deteriorating track, thus giving their bowlers enough time.

Sri Lanka were not going to help them, as their slow over-rate suggested as much. They wanted to take it deep with bad weather around. When India found themselves at 120/5, the onus was on Pant. First from the dressing room and then in the middle, he had seen what had led to his teammates’ dismissal. There were certain shots, like trying to hit the spinners straight, that were fraught with risk. Being defensive isn’t going to work either. So Pant decided to play by Pant’s textbook. Be as unpredictable as possible.

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Pant brought up his 100th maximum off pacer Lahiru Kumar while reaching his half-century. (CREIMAS)

With the spinners finding turn, he didn’t dare to step down and take them on as he did famously against Nathan Lyon. He played them off the back foot, but when he wanted to attack them, he used his sweeps and reverse-sweeps. Again, the length was the key. Maybe in the time he spent giggling behind the stumps when Niroshan Dickwella and Sonal Dinusha were batting, he had picked up a lesson or two. If you are sweeping, do it off deliveries in the 3m length. Conventional or reverse was a choice that the line demanded. And sweeping from such length meant, even with the ball taking turn, the chance of top-edging it was minimal, as he ensured it rolled along the carpet. One slog sweep being the exception.

Controlled Aggression

But is a Pant knock complete without him using his feet? The pacers allowed him that space. Against Asitha Fernando and Lahiru Kumara, who tried to put the brakes on the scoring rate by delivering short deliveries, Pant didn’t just rely on his hooks and pulls.

He would jump down and flat-bat it over mid-wicket or covers. It is nothing new, but what he did cautiously was to try and keep the ball on the ground rather than looking to go aerial. When the short deliveries were in the line of the body, he was prepared to sway down and even take blows. But the moment it was slightly down the leg, Pant had no hesitation in playing those expansive pulls, where he took a full whirl with his 100th six coming during the knock. In 89 innings, he is the fastest to the number and the first Indian to reach the landmark.

The innings ultimately ended with a miscued pull shot. The scoreboard showed only 66, but for India it meant much more. If not for Pant, it is hard to tell where India would have ended up and how long they would have taken to enter the safety net.