37, 1, 21, 28, and 9—these are Rishabh Pant’s scores in the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25. He’s averaging 19.20 after 3 Test matches. People are rushing to pass judgement on Team India’s senior pros, Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, for their nonperformance, and rightly so. But why isn’t anyone talking about the wicketkeeper’s quiet run?
Runs dried up
Some might say he’s earned that right. Pant played a major part in India’s series victories Down Under. But do they justify the failures happening right now? He was in great touch against Bangladesh and New Zealand, but since he’s reached the shores of Australia, he’s struggled.
Dodgy keeping
He’s gotten starts in three of his five innings, but not once has he converted into a big score. Another issue has been wicketkeeping. Pant has seemed slow to react quite a few times, and it even feels that he’s putting a lot more of his weight on his right knee. The glovework wasn’t that great in Adelaide, but even Alex Carey struggled there.
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Rishabh Pant failing to replicate Travis Head
The biggest has been his failure to open up the game for India. In the last two series, he’d scored an unbeaten 89 and 159. He also missed a hundred, getting out of 97. This time around, these knocks haven’t come. Compare him to Australia’s number five, Travis Head. A southpaw like him, Head won them the match in Adelaide with his incredible century and backed that again in Brisbane. Had Australia won, it would have been attributed to his innings.
Australia’s top order has struggled more than India’s. Yet their number five has easily outdone the visitors. Head has taken Australia from a neutral or disadvantageous situation a couple of times already. That can’t be said for Pant. His job, like Head’s, is to play the role of a disruptor. Both can’t be stopped when on, but in Pant’s case, Australia has managed to stop them.
You can say India hasn’t planned that well for Head, but Australia has done so for Pant, and it seems like he’s falling for that time and again. Scott Boland, Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc, and Pat Cummins are all bowling over the wicket to Pant around the 4th stump and trying to get him to nick it behind the stumps. Pant tried something different in Adelaide by taking the bowlers on, but it didn’t work out that well.
He’s continuing to get found out by the Australian quicks while Head seems to be doing what Pant did to the visitors three years back.
Rishabh Pant’s Test record in Australia
| Span | Matches | Innings | Runs | Average | 100s | 50s | High Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Before Series | 7 | 12 | 624 | 62.40 | 1 | 2 | 159* |
| Now | 10 | 17 | 720 | 48.00 | 1 | 2 | 159* |
