His batting is blooming with every passing innings: Amre
NEW DELHI:
Rishabh Pant
's scintillating innings against Gujarat Titans on Wednesday had everyone in awe, from spectators and teammates to former cricketers.
It's now clear no one else can bat like Pant does. He writes his own cricketing rulebook. How can one explain some of the shots he pulled off against GT? Like the one off
Mohit Sharma
's bowling in the final over of DC's innings.
There was an attempted wide yorker by Sharma that nearly went for a six over the cover point boundary.
What was astounding is how Pant managed to lay bat on ball. As the ball thudded into the boundary ropes for a four, Pant was totally off-balance, with his left hand on the ground supporting his body weight, the bat in his right hand but pointing towards deep square leg - exactly the opposite direction to where the ball went - and the right leg directing towards the mid-wicket region.
One can be misled into thinking this was gymnastics, not cricket. But that's the way the man plays, and is supremely effective.
A pull shot - again off Sharma's bowling - that went for a six was executed with just one hand, the right one, as if he was playing a cross-court backhand winner on the tennis court.
Pant was pulling off these pyrotechnics with a song on his lips. As teammate
Axar Patel
revealed in a video for IPL's social media handle, Pant was singing the song 'Satranga' from the movie Animal while the duo was involved in a match-defining 113-run partnership in the middle.
His comeback story is blooming with every passing match, and every performance is increasing Pant's confidence. "Each and every day, I am feeling better. Every hour I just love being on the field. I just want to give my 100%, my best on the field," Pant said.
DC batting coach
Pravin Amre
also talked about Pant's "insatiable hunger" to get back to his best - in fact be a better version of what he was before his horrific December 2022 accident.
"I remember his first day when he came to (DC's) the Vizag camp, he went straight to the ground from the airport. He was hungry, he made sure that he was going to utilise every day. And you can see all his hard work is paying off," Amre said to a query posed by TOI after DC's win over Gujarat.
"And obviously a couple of good knocks gave him the confidence, and today we saw a special knock. His batting is blooming and getting better and better with every passing innings.
"Finishing was important for us, and we saw how Rishabh single-handedly got 31 runs against an experienced death bowler like Mohit Sharma. It really shows that he is in pretty good form and his confidence level is also increasing," Amre added.
Like
Ricky Ponting
and
Sourav Ganguly
have said on different occasions during the course of the ongoing IPL "an in-form Rishabh Pant augurs well for the Indian team for the upcoming T20 World Cup".
English (US) ·