This is why Rishabh Pant the white-ball batsman fares poorly as compared to Test version

Within 43 Test appearances, Pant’s legacy as India’s most prolific wicketkeeper-bat has already entered an indisputable territory. The mighty biffs, the reverse ramps, the sweeps: conventional, reverse and the one-hander, heaves and whatnot! Coupled with an immensely sturdy vertical bat protecting his pads and wicket, Pant’s unusual shot-making range has stamped an X-factor status in the longest format.

In this same timeline, his white-ball self has curiously driven to a strange crossroads. It is uncertain if Pant will remain the first-choice wicket-keeper for the ODIs and the Champions Trophy with KL Rahul in contention. Pant’s 50-over record is middling at best after 31 matches – 871 runs at 33.5. Despite his long lay-off from regular 50-over cricket, Pant was named the second keeper in the Champions Trophy squad unveiled on Saturday, pipping the likes of Sanju Samson and Ishan Kishan.

India’s Rishabh Pant plays a shot just before he is caught by Bangladesh’s Tanzim Hasan during the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup cricket match between India and Bangladesh at Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in North Sound, Antigua and Barbuda, Saturday, June 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

Samson has no 50-over exploits after his last outing for India in December 2023. He belted a hundred in South Africa before Pant returned to the radar in mid-2024. Kishan, who filled in for Pant in the 2023 ODI World Cup, has endured a slump in the ongoing domestic season.

Pant’s left-handedness continues to be a point of discussion and difference, but runs haven’t flown off his blade as smoothly as in Tests, leaving India and himself with a unique conundrum.

Identity crisis

Pant’s uncommon batting matrix has dominated in Tests where he has sped to 2948 runs in 75 innings. His 73 sixes have vaulted him to the fourth spot among Indian Test batters, only behind Virender Sehwag (90), Rohit Sharma (88) and MS Dhoni (78).

His methods aren’t flawless but they thrive in the traditionally defensive Test match-setting. A supremely efficient defence masks Pant from being dismissed bowled or lbw as often as his contemporaries, falling only 11 times combined in that fashion.

Pant batting across formats

“He’s (Pant) got one of the best defences in world cricket. Defence has become a challenging aspect, he has the best defence with a soft hand. I will change my name if someone can show me Pant getting out while defending 10 times,” spin legend and Pant’s long-time teammate R Ashwin had recently remarked.

While he has been dismissed on 15 occasions with a front-foot defence in Tests, the blocking characteristics have largely held the glue to his game in all forms. But when the red-ball basher swaps the whites for the India blues, his attacking efficacies slump by a staggering margin.

It is impossible to evaluate Pant by ordinary metrics. On his day, he can be the one waging a lone battle in ODIs too, as he did with his solitary century – an unbeaten 125 chasing 260 against England in 2022 when the rest of the top-order was nipped in Manchester.

Pant while attacking

The Delhi batter’s control in the longer formats is nearly the same while his boundary-yielding traits are identical in Tests, ODIs and T20Is. His control percentage (measure of shots middled) read 82.4% in Tests and 82.3% in ODIs. Pant’s boundary scoring percentages vary negligibly across formats, between 58 and 60 per cent.

Yet his attacking postures yield intriguingly contrasting results. Pant has attacked 32.5 percent of deliveries he has faced in Test cricket to aggregate 2306 runs, making up nearly 80 percent of his career.

Besides the 73 maximums, Pant’s attacking shots in Tests have comprised 166 aerial/uppish strokes as per Cricket-21 data. While 80 of these strokes have evaded the fielders, Pant’s proclivity to leave fate to chance completes the other hefty half. An aerial shot has produced his catch 55 times, but more importantly, Pant’s sheer fortune has also handed him 31 reprieves.

Interestingly, Pant has been dropped (16) more times than he has been caught (12) outside the 30-yard circle. While he majorly ‘gets away’ with the slogs, the sparsity of an outfield Test catch may evoke the “stupid, stupid, stupid” feeling for some experts and the viewing public.

Pant carries the same energies into the T20I and ODI set-ups, but the concoction of risks and luck works differently here. Pant’s T20I numbers never took off despite playing in the comforts of a settled slot at No. 4 or 5. Among active cricketers who have played at least 40 innings at No. 4-5, Pant is the only batter to hold a strike rate below 130 while representing a top-8 T20I team.

Expansive fields in the middle overs and death in white-ball cricket have not suited Pant’s attacking template. It hinders a few of his go-to shots, failing to execute them with the same effect they exude in Tests.

Rishabh Pant dives to take catch. (File)

The slog remains one of his most diverging shots in red-ball cricket, bringing up 105 runs at the cost of nine dismissals in 53 balls – middling only 16 (30.2%) of these deliveries. The pull has yielded him 317 Test runs for four dismissals, at a superior control rate of 77%.

However, Pant’s slogs have cast his downfall four times in 19 deliveries in ODIs, with a poor 26.9% control rate. The pull has also ousted him on four occasions while adding 118 runs and controlling over 70% of the strokes.

Concerns around his aerial shots bear a protracted spurt in T20Is, where he needs them like oxygen. The slog, slog sweep and reverse sweep have resulted in 16 of Pant’s dismissals for only 130 runs. The southpaw falters by a telling margin in execution, middling only 29 of the 93 deliveries. Even his favoured pull shot has marked his dismissal every 13 instances in T20Is.

Where Rishabh Pant gets caught in all three formats.

Pant’s catch-maps in ODIs and T20Is reflect the struggles. Of his 18 caught dismissals in ODIs, 11 have been found outside the 30-yard circle; seven on the on-side between deep square leg and long-on. Excluding sixes, Pant has played 34 aerial shots crossing the inner ring, and unlike Tests, he has never been dropped in ODIs past the circle!

When dealing with a higher rate of uppish strokes in T20Is, Pant has only been dropped twice in the deep in front of the wicket and caught 18 times – exposing the chinks when he activates ‘slog mode’.

With left-handed batters and wicket-keeping options fronting up more abundantly for India, the 27-year-old’s white-ball quiver demands an immediate reset.

Pant cannot do away with the thrills and frills. But a workaround to smash the white-ball sharper and longer, past the catching men he rarely chances upon in Tests, is fast becoming a matter of survival at the top.

All table data credits: Cricket-21