The 20-year-old Indian wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant has made his Test debut in the ongoing third Test at Trent Bridge and has impressed with his performances both with the bat and gloves. His mother Saroj Pant recently claimed that she was very nervous and surprised on her son’s Test debut.
Pant has made his Test debut after the experienced wicketkeeper-batsman Dinesh Karthik has been dropped for his poor performances in the first two Tests of the series.
Making his Test debut at the age of just 20 years and 318 days, Pant becomes the fifth youngest wicketkeeper-batsman to make a Test debut for India. However, Pant already made his international cricket debut before this Test as he has played four T20Is after making debut in February 2017. In his T20I career, Pant has scored a total of 73 runs (average 24.33) including the best knock 38 runs.
Coming to the Trent Bridge Test, Pant received the Test cap from the Indian skipper Virat Kohli on Saturday morning. Pant came to bat on the opening day of the Test match after the skipper Kohli was dismissed on 97 runs and India was on 279/5. Facing only the second ball in his Test career, the left-handed batsman opened his Test account with a sixer to English leg-spinner Adil Rashid.
He scored 24 runs in the first innings and later became the youngest wicketkeeper in international cricket to take five catches in an innings.
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Talking about her son’s debut in Test cricket, Rishabh’s mother said according to The Kashmir Times, “I was very nervous when I heard that he would be making his Test debut. I was very much surprised. Before going into play the Test, he telephoned me and asked me to watch him play on TV. I generally don’t watch matches on TV when he is playing. However, after his father’s recent death, he has been requesting me to watch him play.”
However, Rishabh’s coach Tarak Sinha was not surprised to see him opened the innings with a sixer as he claimed that the young player is mentally very strong.
Sinha said, “Rishabh is a steel [sic] man and among all my other promising pupils, has ability to hit hard. He is mentally very strong and is not only the player with the white ball. He has proved that he can play the red cherry with confidence and against all odds”.
