Former India head coach Greg Chappell has said that the beauty of Rishabh Pant鈥檚 Test batting is that he gets his runs swiftly which gives his team the time to win games, as the Test vice-captain left his mark at Headingley with twin hundreds, a record for an Indian batter.
Chappell said that Pant is redefining the way the game is played, with a batting approach that breaks away from usual norms.
India might have lost the Headingley Test, but Pant鈥檚 brilliance shone through as he scored hundreds in both innings, a rare feat that underlined his game-changing capability.
鈥淭he beauty of it (Pant鈥檚 batting) is that he gets his runs at a very fast rate, which gives you time to win cricket matches. It was a phenomenal performance; some of the shots that he played probably weren鈥檛 in the MCC coaching manual when I last looked at it,鈥 Chappell said while speaking at an event in Mumbai.
鈥淗e is reinventing the game as a batter. You know, modern technology, the bats are very different. You can play shots that weren鈥檛 possible with the old bats. But man, he鈥檚 exciting to watch,鈥 Chappell added.
Pant made history by becoming just the second wicketkeeper-batter after Andy Flower to score a hundred in each innings of a Test.
鈥淵ou never quite know what to expect from the first ball at any stage. He鈥檚 likely to jump down the wicket to the pacers, or he鈥檒l play the falling ramp shot. You never quite know what to expect, so it keeps the opposition on their toes,鈥 Chappell said.
鈥淲hat an exciting cricketer, what a player to have on your team. When I first saw him, he was a different sort of player, of course, but he reminded me very much of Adam Gilchrist,鈥 Chappell added.
Meanwhile, Pant reached a career-high seventh in the latest ICC Test rankings for batters on Wednesday, following his twin hundreds in the series opener against England in Leeds.
Pant, who became just the second wicketkeeper to hit two centuries in the same game during the first Test of the five-match series, climbed one spot in the list.