Rishabh Pant slammed twin centuries in the first Test against England at Headingley.
Indian wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant slammed twin centuries in the first Test match against England at Headingley, Leeds.
The southpaw followed up his brilliant 134 in the first innings with an entertaining 118 in the second essay. As a result, he became only the second wicketkeeper in history to score a century in both innings of a Test match, joining Zimbabwe legend Andy Flower in an elite list.
However, Pant’s valiant effort went in vain as the visitors lost the match by five wickets. India’s bowling attack fell flat, allowing the hosts to chase down a massive target of 371 in the fourth innings.
Ahead of the second Test at Edgbaston, England all-rounder Chris Woakes expressed excitement that comes while bowling against the explosive Pant.
"Rishabh's a player who you don't really know what's coming next. He's a player who keeps you on your toes as a bowler, which is sometimes exciting to bowl against. But sometimes, he can put you on the back foot as a bowler. He makes the game move forward. It's exciting to be a part of the game when he's at the crease," Woakes told reporters in a press conference on Monday (June 30).
With the Pant threat looming yet again in Brimingham, Woakes remains hopeful of pulling the curtains down early on the much-anticipated fireworks from the left-hander.
"But look, he scored two hundreds, obviously up at Headingley, he played really well, chanced his arm on a few occasions and came off. Hopefully, this week, we can get him a little bit earlier. I think we haven't really met up yet, but I'm sure we'll have some discussions around some of the players that we came up against last week and how we can bowl at them a little bit better," he added.
Rishabh Pant will look to carry his dominance as a batter in Test matches on English soil. In 10 Tests, he has aggregated 808 runs at an impressive average of 42.52 while striking at 69.89.
England’s squad for second Test: Ben Stokes (capt), Jofra Archer, Shoaib Bashir, Jacob Bethell, Harry Brook, Brydon Carse, Sam Cook, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Jamie Overton, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Jamie Smith, Josh Tongue, Chris Woakes.
India's squad for second Test: Shubman Gill (capt), Rishabh Pant (VC & WK), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Sai Sudharsan, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Karun Nair, Nitish Reddy, Ravindra Jadeja, Dhruv Jurel (WK), Washington Sundar, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohd. Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Akash Deep, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav.
(With ANI Inputs)