Rishabh Pant stares at challenging road to redemption
Rishabh Pant's white-ball career struggles post-accident raise questions about his future in India's cricket plans amid stiff competition and dwindling opportunities.
Kolkata: A snapshot of Rishabh Pant’s white-ball career since his miraculous comeback from a road accident throws up an interesting number. Outside the emotionally charged rebound that culminated into his 2024 T20 World Cup participation straight out of recovery and rehabilitation spanning more than a year, Pant has played exactly three more white-ball matches since that final in Barbados — two T20Is and an ODI in the low-key tour of Sri Lanka where Gautam Gambhir had taken over as head coach of India.
With just another bilateral series set to be played at home, this is a significant number to mull over in the context of the selection meeting scheduled to happen soon. Should Pant continue to be part of the wider conversation regarding India’s white ball pool? The discourse is centred around the phenomenon Pant can be because otherwise, the cold hard numbers are just not there.
T20 was the first format to slip through Pant’s grasp. His slow but steady wane emphasised in the IPL where leadership was clearly messing with his psyche. Concurrently transpired a T20 churn so intense and thorough in the wake of the retirements of Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Ravindra Jadeja that Pant just didn’t make the cut anymore, not at least till Sanju Samson, Dhruv Jurel and Ishan Kishan are around.
It left Pant with only one-days as a viable option to keep himself relevant in white-ball cricket. The Vijay Hazare Trophy was offered as a timely jailbreak card, one that Virat Kohli utilised spectacularly well on the back of two sparkling ODI hundreds in Raipur and Ranchi. With 121 runs in four matches at an average of 30.25, Pant hasn’t quite got going.
We aren’t talking form because it isn’t exactly a dealbreaker in this part of the world. Yes, Pant’s numbers aren’t great. Yes, he’s probably trying too much when there is really no need for improvisation. Still, Pant’s game doesn’t feel terminally bad.
Especially when you put under the scanner the period between September, 2024 till the England tour in mid June last year where he scored 995 runs in 12 Tests at an average of 45.22 with the help of two hundreds and seven fifties and more significantly a strike rate of 74.19 that had kept up with his career return. And since one-dayers are widely considered a compact version of Tests, Pant should have been in the mix more regularly. Only, he wasn’t.
It wasn’t entirely Pant’s fault though. A turning point here were the much better and consistent returns offered by KL Rahul who was picked as wicketkeeper batter for the 2023 ODI World Cup that Pant was forced to miss due to injury.
Through that year till the 2025 Champions Trophy where Rahul kept his calm to help India win the final, Pant had no choice but to watch from the benches. And since ODIs have generally been very far and few, India had no reason to experiment with the wicketkeeper-batter position either.
What didn’t help however was the beating Pant’s image took in the wake of the dismissals against South Africa in the home Tests last November, prompting Gambhir to lash out against “playing for the gallery.” No names were taken but everyone knew who that barb was meant for.
Which is why it was even more telling when Pant wasn’t considered for any of three ODIs against South Africa right after the Tests. And now, with the reemergence of Kishan, Pant’s chances of playing one-dayers have taken a further beating.
Unlike Dhruv Jurel, both are left-handed. On paper, Pant’s ODI strike rate is better than Kishan’s. But if India’s selection criterion right now is a backup left-handed batter capable of playing match-altering innings, Kishan probably is in a better headspace right now.
India’s Test schedule, and more specifically the gap between Tests, can’t be helping too. It has left Pant staring at a complicated 2026 with a crooked road towards redemption.
Out of India’s T20I team, his one-day stocks dipping to an all-time low on account of not playing, Pant has by all means only the IPL and a few Tests later this year to show that he is still relevant to India’s white-ball plans. It’s an unfairly uphill task, but one that only Pant can pull off.
