Rishabh Pant is set to make his cricketing comeback after 14 months of recovery and rehab since his near-fatal car accident in December 2022. He missed quite a lot of action in the midst but didn’t give up on his recovery and another process.
The medical staff that nursed Rishabh Pant back to full fitness raved about his resilience and mental strength. They said that he persevered through a "frustrating" recovery process.
It seemed far-fetched 15 months ago when he suffered multiple injuries in the crash. However, it has come true thanks to the expert care he got from the likes of Dr Dinshaw Pardiwala, Director, Centre for Sports Medicine, Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital in Mumbai, and some dedicated staff at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru.
Pardiwala remembered how arduous Pant's recovery journey was.
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“As surgeons and as doctors, it's very important for us to inform our patients, their families, and all the stakeholders of the actual status of the injury. Rishabh's mother was with him. She was very concerned whether he would ever be able to walk again. I told her that 'this is such a critical injury and we will aim for him to get back to competitive cricket. But that's going to be a long-drawn process'” Pardiwala said in a video shared by BCCI.
However, Pardiwala was left astonished when he saw Pant's confidence as he entered the recovery phase.
"When I told Rishabh 18 months, he said 'Okay, I am going to show you I can do it in 12 months'," he said.
Pant stayed true to his words as he put in the hard yards at the NCA during his recuperation.
"When I started walking without crutches, that was a high point. Then started jogging a little bit, which was a high for me, then started batting, then started keeping as I took joy in everything," said the 26-year-old.
Pardiwala said the complex knee injury, the trauma following the accident, and Pant's own frustration at being away from the cricket field had to be dealt with effectively.
"For any surgeon, knee dislocation is one of the worst injuries because everything breaks. You need to get back the stability, you need to get back the shock absorption capability. For any trauma, there is a period of shock and there is always an aspect of mental health. On a particular day, you are perfectly normal, you are a superstar and you are celebrated across the world,” the doctor said.
"But a week later, you can't do what a normal person does. That's when the frustration sets in. So, that was a difficult period for Rishabh. We had to support him through that phase,” he added.
Dhananjay Kaushik, the NCA physiotherapist, said Pant came to him with a dilapidated knee after the accident, but he too was amazed at Pant's positive attitude.
"None of the ligaments (on Pant's injured right knee) were spared during that accident. ACL (Anterior Cruciate Ligament), PCL (Posterior Cruciate Ligament), a part of the quadriceps, you name it and he did not have it. I think if there is anyone who could make a comeback, it is Rishabh Pant, with the attitude he has got," said Kaushik.
Nishanta Bordoloi, the strength and conditioning coach at NCA, said the whole episode left Pant a transformed human being.
"It has made him a better human being. He is now respecting life, as a whole, more. It has just made him more resilient and stronger. He was a very good human being, he has become an even better human being now," said Bordoloi.
Here is the video:
(PTI inputs)
