Pant braved injury to put up a stellar batting display.
India wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant showed great character to play a superb innings of 99 during the ongoing IND vs NZ 1st Test.
Pant, who had walked off the field on Day 2 of the game after taking a knock to his knee, did not even keep wickets on Day 3. Incidentally, it was the same knee he had gotten operated on following his horrible car accident.
However, earlier today (Day 4), Pant walked out to bat braving his injury and managed to play a deft innings. Unfortunately, as he inched closer to the ton, Pant could be seen struggling and limping and was eventually dismissed just one run shy of his century.
Interestingly, following Pant’s dismissal, a former Proteas star took responsibility of the outcome and for jinxing the India wicketkeeper’s hundred.
Replying to a tweet by cricket analyst Prasanna (Pdogg), Dale Steyn replied,
“I think I jinxed him… I saw your tweet, jumped up to watch on tv and first ball I watch he gets bowled.”
Speaking about the match, the Indian team put up a fiery effort in their second innings after getting bundled out for 46 in their first.
Although the top order batted exceedingly well – Yashasvi Jaiswal (35), Rohit Sharma (52), Virat Kohli (70), Sarfaraz Khan (15), Rishabh Pant (90), the lower-order could not do much damage.
After Pant’s dismissal, the hosts managed to add another 29 runs as the Kiwi bowlers made late inroads.
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The Indian team would have hoped for some more contribution for the lower-middle order and the tail as they eventually managed to post 462 runs and set up a relatively easy target of 107 runs for New Zealand.
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