Sydney Test: Rishabh Pant flaunts his ability to play the situation

The scrutiny over India's batting has engulfed almost every player in the order. The start of the Sydney Test saw Rohit Sharma "dropping himself" from the combination. Despite a turn as significant as the skipper of the team being dropped, the team failed to script a turnaround in the series. The woes remained the same for the visitors in Sydney as in the last four BGT Tests, with the likes of KL Rahul, Shubman Gill, and Virat Kohli departing cheaply. However, India witnessed, and Australia faced, a commendable fightback from Rishabh Pant. In a knock that lasted for 40 runs, Pant showed a glimpse of his ability to play the situation, moving away from his natural flamboyant strokeplay.

Rishabh Pant explains his psyche behind playing defensively in the Sydney Test

India opened the Sydney Test with Jasprit Bumrah, the interim captain, opting to bat first in the final Border Gavaskar Trophy game. The SCG pitch played to Australia's command as Mitchell Starc and Scott Boland tore through the Indian top-order. KL Rahul, opening the innings, walked off at just 4 before Jaiswal followed shortly with a score of 10. Shubman Gill failed to validate his return as he departed for 20. The biggest setback arrived at Kohli's hand as the former Indian skipper once again nicked one to walk off at just 17. However, Australia finally faced some resistance when Rishabh Pant came to bat.

Pant drew severe ire from the legendary Sunil Gavaskar in the Boxing Day Test for his irresponsible batting. "Stupid, stupid, stupid," Gavaskar shot from the commentary box when Pant attempted a scoop in the match only to be caught out. However, as the Sydney Test commenced, Pant showed his flexibility. The wicket-keeper met severe body blows from Starc and Boland. One delivery landed fiercely on his arm, leaving a sore black spot. Other incidents included Pant getting hit on his torso several times and a delivery striking his helmet.

However, Pant played the attack defensively, going for only four boundaries in his knock that lasted 98 balls. The batter turned up as the highest run-scorer for India in the innings that bundled out for just 185 runs. Speaking after the end of the day's play, Rishabh reflected on his constrained batting display against the Kangaroos. The batter explained that he understood the requirement of the moment as the wicket was already playing too much at the SCG.

“I think in this innings, I was not in a frame of mind where I wanted to take charge of the game because the wicket was doing too much and the kind of situation we were in,” Pant said. “I would say there might be a 50-50 chance which I could have taken early on in this innings but sometimes you have to play more secure cricket especially the way, wicket was behaving. We knew that if we lost one more wicket here, we might lose 2-3 in quick succession. So that was the idea behind the way I was playing,” he added.