En route to his second hundred of the first Test in Leeds, Rishabh Pant upraised his bat to let a shortish ball from Chris Woakes amble past him. He smiled ruefully and mouthed an aside: “Paki wali ball, itna tameez se khelne ke chakkar mei choot rahi hai (An easy ball, have to leave them in for playing properly).” He shed his asceticism next ball. He fizzed down the track and clattered a good length ball over the bowler’s head.
These two balls captured the crux of Pant’s prolific series in England. He exhibited all the daring unorthodoxy that makes him one of the most valuable and watchable batsmen around, but he also exhibited the orthodox defensive foundations that make the attacking game function as exceptionally as it does.
A re-solidified defensive technique was the foundation on which he built his castles in England. In the first innings, he left or blocked 72 off the 178 balls he faced. Only seven of those were not in control or induced an edge or beat him. In the second innings, he blunted/left alone 47 off 140 balls, and was beaten only thrice (a leave though trapped him in front). That is, his control percentage when employing a defensive measure was 90 and 91. These are edifying numbers that testify to his defensive resoluteness, which was the bedrock of his attacking game.
WHAT A KNOCK, WHAT A CELEBRATION! 💪💯
2018, 2021 & now 2025 – 𝙍𝙄𝙎𝙃𝘼𝘽𝙃-𝙋𝘼𝙉𝙏𝙄 continues on the English soil! 💪
👉 7th Test century
👉 4th vs ENG in Tests
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Regaining a balance
Pant always possessed a strong defensive game, only that the attacking strokes blurred the efficiency of his blocks. But somewhere in his quest to live up to the marauder image post his return to the field after the accident, he lost the balance between attack and defence, a psychological rather than a technical flaw. In Australia, he premeditated once too often and lost the crystal-like clarity and judgment in the pre-accident phase. He blocked balls that he could have blasted and blasted balls he should have blocked.
When he returned home, he consulted one of his childhood coaches, Devender Sharma. “After he failed in Australia, he made a lot of changes to his defensive techniques and curbed his stroke play,” Sharma told PTI. Under the watchful gaze, he decided to play fewer strokes, or rather chose his moments to attack and defend smartly. He also remembered the early advice of Tarak Sinha, the coach who moulded him.
When Sinha discovered him, Pant was – as known in local cricket parlance – a lifter. He brazenly uncorked the lofted strokes to clear the infield and often the fence. But Sinha would advise him to temper the lofted strokes. “He had one rule: learn the defence first. ‘If you master the defence, you will master everything else’. He believed I knew how to play the attacking shots, so he wanted me to learn how to defend,” he told Jio Hotstar. Not just Pant, all successful attacking batsmen across generations, from Viv Richards and Virender Sehwag to AB de Villiers, had strong, and often simple, defensive techniques.
The Pant defence is a non-event. His strides are short but definite. He conforms to the conventional ideals of playing as close to the body as possible, under the eyes, with soft hands and still head. He does not prod, stab or throw his hands at the ball. There are none of the acrobats that characterise his roly-poly shots. There is hardly any flourish or follow-through. He seems a trifle late on the ball, but is quite not. In Leeds, he blunted a turf-kissing grubber from Ben Stokes of good length. Only batsmen with good eyes, sound judgement and quick reflexes could have averted the ball from crashing into the stumps or pads. In Leeds, his interception points ranged from 0.5m to 3m according to the broadcasters’ graph.
India’s Rishabh Pant plays a shot during the third cricket test match between England and India at Lord’s cricket ground in London, Saturday, July 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Pelham)
Transfer of weight
It encapsulated his methods; he doesn’t commit prematurely to either foot. He is comfortable on both feet. When he drives, he is almost to the pitch of the ball, or on top of the bounce when meeting the ball on the rise. When defending on the back foot, the short ball seldom hurries him as the hands are quite high. And when defending on the front foot, the hands stoop low.
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The transfer of weight is always fluid. His legs are stocky but have the nimbleness of a gymnast. The remnants of gymnastics training in childhood still flicker, not only in the century-celebration manoeuvres, like the handspring and back flip, but also in more fundamental aspects like defending. In this series, he was exceptional in leaving the ball, which he makes look as casual as sunbathing on a beach. Before the series, he had been consciously adopting a more side-on approach. “In one-day and T20s you have to open up your stance because of the kind of shots you want to play. At the same time, coming to England, you have to play a little side-on and that really helps. That’s the basic technical thing which I have shifted,” he said in a press conference during the series.
The only line of attack that harries him is when the seamer angles the ball across him at good length from over the stumps. Kagiso Rabada used the trajectory adroitly against him in South Africa. But he countered it by giving himself room and charging down the deck to unsettle the length. Chris Woakes attempted a similar line, but Pant badgered him into submission using the aforementioned method.
Another profound metric explains his defensive impregnability. Only 14 times in 82 innings has he been bowled (10) or lbw (4). That is only 17%. Just to contextualise the number—not necessarily putting one above the other—bowled and lbws comprised 31% of the great technician, Rahul Dravid’s dismissals.
India’s Rishabh Pant celebrates after scoring a century on day four of the first cricket test match between England and India at Headingley in Leeds. (AP Photo)
The enhanced discretion outside the off-stump is borne out by the fact that none of the seven dismissals was a catch to the slips, wicket-keeper or gully. As recently as the Australian series, he tended to nibble and poke outside the off-stump. Of the 58 times he had been out caught in his career, 24 had been catches to the wicket keeper or the slip cordon. Seven of them were not defensive strokes, but the percentage (30) is still quite high.
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The fortified Pant, thus, is a more sinister proposition for bowlers. He can block and blast, nudge and glide, reverse lap and shoulder arms, be both the saint and the devil. The sheer realisation that he can attack every ball and defend every ball could numb the bowlers to disenchantment. A bit of tameez reaped rewards.
