Rishabh Pant Accident: Rishabh Pant’s Comeback In The T20 World Cup 2024

Rishabh Pant has been the talk of the town since his return to the cricket field after his horrific car accident in December 2022 when he was travelling to his hometown, Roorkee, to meet his family after finishing the Bangladesh series. On December 30, 2022, when he met with a horrific road accident on the Delhi-Dehradun highway. As a result, he suffered multiple injuries on his head, leg, knee, and back and was hospitalised. This unfortunate incident derailed his career as he spent months in recovery and since then, has made substantial progress. He underwent intricate procedures in February 2023 on all 3 ligaments in his right knee. However, he made a strong comeback in the Indian Premier League by scoring 3 consecutive half-centuries in the 17th edition of the Indian Premier League from Delhi Capitals franchise.

With the way Pant played in the concluded Indian Premier League, he never looked back on what happened in the past and emerged as a fighter after surviving the fatal car accident which changed his life completely. The wicket-keeper batsman not only shows his prowess with the bat but also with saving the crucial runs behind the stump, where he is showing his fitness by diving for the catches and saving crucial runs behind the stumps.

From Highs To Lows

It would not be wrong to say that Rishabh Pant's cricketing journey is like a rollercoaster ride where he has been going through a lot of ups and downs whether it’s being dropped from the team or being the hero of the Indian win against Australia in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in 2021, the Southpaw batter has been going through all of this several time in his cricketing career, which made him develop a fearless attitude towards the game and after his near death experience in the car-accident Pant’s approach towards life has been completely changed, he looked much more calm and focused towards the game while working on his skills.

Rishabh Pant was among the few cricket players who decided early that one day he going to play for India when he started playing cricket at the mere age of just 12 years where he used to travel with his mother to Delhi on weekends to train at the Sonnet Cricket Academy for which he and his mother stayed at a Gurdwara in Moti Bagh as they did not have suitable accommodation in the city.

Rishabh’s hard work paved off as in the Under-19 match against Assam from Delhi, Pant impressed everyone with a top-scored 35 in his first innings and then hit 150 in the second innings, which opened the door for him in the domestic cricket debut in October 2015 during the 2015–16 Ranji Trophy matches and then in November, he played for the Vijay Hazare Trophy. In the next year, he knocked 308 runs in one innings, in a match against Maharashtra, becoming the third-youngest Indian to score a triple century in a Ranji Match.

He continued to make a global headline by scoring the fastest century, in 48 balls in the Ranji Trophy match against Jharkhand and scored another century in just 32 balls during the Zonal T20 League match, making it the second-fastest century in T20 history.

International Debut

Rishabh made his International debut in January 2017 with the T20I league, followed by his ODI debut in October 2018. Due to his consistent performance, he was presented with the title of ICC Men's Emerging Cricketer of the Year at the ICC Awards, in 2018. That's not all, in February 2021, he was also named Player of the Month in the Men’s category.

The Downfall Of 2019-2020

After getting a debut for the Indian team and getting praised by several former cricketers for his performance, Pant faced a downfall in his cricketing career, for which he was dropped from the team.

It was also the time when Dhoni announced his departure from International cricket. Team India required a new wicketkeeper, who could fill Mahi's shoes and Pant's name was heavily recommended, along with KL Rahul. But Pant failed to impress the selectors with His ordinary performances, which put him in the backseat while KL Rahul succeeded.

His performance at the 2020 IPL didn't live up to the mark as he knocked just 343 runs in the season, as compared to his previous high score of 1172 runs in the last two seasons! As a result, he was dropped when India toured Australia in 2021 for the limited-overs matches. This period is often described as having a 'slump' for him and unfortunately, his recent performances were compared to that of Dhoni as Rishabh was going through a rough patch. 

Despite being dropped from the team, Pant kept working on his skills and he bounced back during the final day of the reputed Border Gavaskar Trophy 2020–21, Pant emerged as a knight in shining armour when he scored 89 runs off 138 balls! His impeccable batting stance helped India chase down the target of 328 runs, set by the Aussies, who had not been defeated at the Gabba since 1988! He also smashed 101 runs off 118 balls in a Test Match against England which included 14 boundaries and 2 sixes!

After scoring the most runs in IPL from a Delhi-based franchise, the left-hand batsman continued his brilliant form in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup by playing a crucial knock of 53 runs in 32 balls in the warm-up game against Bangladesh, which helped the Indian team to win the match by 60 runs. Later, scoring 36 runs in the opening game against Ireland of 26 balls, which included 3 boundaries and 2 sixes all over the ground with an impressive strike rate of 180 plus.