AHMEDABAD: Rishabh Pant and Washington Sundar may have made batting look easy in the last session of the fourth Test at Motera on Friday. However, until matters reached there, it was a trying day out for the Indian batsmen on a tricky wicket.
“There was moisture. There was seam. We had to stick around, bat out time,” says Rohit. “That’s what I was discussing with Cheteshwar when he came out to bat. But he left early. I discussed the same with Virat but wickets kept falling. Ajinkya was trying to play his shots, keep it brisk. But as I said, we lost wickets.”

It wasn’t until Pant and Sundar steadied the innings that India could muster confidence to surpass England’s first innings total. Rohit was all praise for Pant’s knock, saying, “He has his own style of batting. It was one of his finest knocks. It came under pressure as well. We saw a few sides to his batting today. Cautious at the beginning and then flourishing and batting the way we’ve known him to bat.”
The cautious version of Pant is a relative misnomer of sorts, given the wicketkeeper batsman’s penchant to go for shots. On a hot Friday afternoon, a ‘cooler’ Pant showed there’s that other side to him as well.
“Over time, the team management has spoken to him about how he needs to be approaching his innings. But he has his own style, which is absolutely fine from our perspective as well, because he seems to be getting the job done. You saw today as well. In the first half of the innings, he was quite respectful, was trusting his defence and then once we got to 200, he just wanted to take on the bowlers, which is fine,” Rohit said.
“You need those kind of players in your team who are not afraid to take on the bowlers. You need a mix of players in your squad. There are some who play respectfully and then you need to have some who are courageous and aren’t afraid of taking their chances. The way cricket is played now is completely different from what it was back in the day. You need to take those chances, you need to be courageous and Pant seems to be that player,” he added.
Rohit said as long as he (Pant) gets the job done, the team is happy. “There are times when he will play shots or he will get out but I don’t want anyone to criticize him for that. He is that kind of a player who can make a team look different within a span of an hour,” the opener said of 23-year-old Pant.
Reiterating that the team management completely understands the cricketing mindset of someone like Pant, they are willing to take those chances and he’s been given the freedom as well. “And that’s really important, from my perspective. He has the backing of the captain and the coach and that’s extremely helpful for a player. He’s a kind of a guy who will play shots, get out but at the end of the day, we need such guys.”