‘There’s method to his madness’ – Nasser Hussain on Rishabh Pant’s unique batting style

India’s Rishabh Pant is a box office performer in red-ball cricket, regardless of whether he plays at home or away. His unorthodox strokes and uncanny game play are certainly dangerous, but they have garnered him a lot of success over time. In the ongoing Headingley Test against England, Pant made history by being the only Indian wicketkeeper to score two hundred in a single game.

Former famous cricketer Nasser Hussain was also impressed by Rishabh Pant’s style of play and believed that coaching the latter must be extremely difficult because he is a difficult nut to crack. According to Hussain, Pant may go into a zone that might wind up the crowd, but he can also come back with some spirited knocks to put his team in control.

“He (Rishabh Pant) must be an incredibly difficult bloke to coach because, as Sunil Gavaskar alluded to with his ‘stupid, stupid, stupid’ comment in Australia last winter, Pant will do things that absolutely wind you up, but he will also get hundreds — as he has done twice here,” he wrote in a piece for the Daily Mail.

“There is method to his madness, but only he knows what it is, whether he is going to defend or attack, and because of that unique nature, I can see why it leads to opposition captains thinking outside the box,” he said.

Pant hit 134 in the first innings of the first Test and doubled it in the second, forming a key sixth-wicket stand with KL Rahul (137 off 247) to set the tone for the visiting team.

Rishabh Pant played the aggressor as his partner, ensuring a balanced approach to keep the match going from both ends.

In the second innings, Pant hammered 118 off just 140 balls, prompting English skipper Ben Stokes to abandon his attacking field arrangement, which he has rarely done since the Bazball tactic was adopted. Nasser Hussain believes Stokes was driven by Pant to make a mistake or two by changing the pitch setup and leaving no slips in place as the Haridwar native batted. The 57-year-old believes that with the kind of surface that Headingley provides, there’s always a chance of earning an advantage.

“He (Stokes) withdrew his slips and returned fielders. It was one of the rare occasions I’d seen Stokes go defensive. As already said, he did so because he clearly believed that he was more likely to get Pant stuck in the deep. Even with Pant playing like he does, Headingley remains a caught-behind-the-wickets venue — around half of catches here are taken in the cordon,” noted Hussain.