India’s tour of Australia in 2020-21 turned out to be an epic contest. After losing the Adelaide Test in a humiliating manner, India bounced back to lift the Border-Gavaskar trophy. While many new heroes emerged from the series, it was Rishabh Pant’s name that stood among the top ones.
Be it Pant’s heroics with the bat, Cheteshwar Pujara-Hanuma Vihari’s effort to wear out the Aussie pacers, or Mohammed Siraj’s rise as a pacer, there were plenty of positives that emerged from the series. While Pant did shine with the bat, cementing his spot behind the stumps, it has to be noted that he wasn’t in the team for the first Test in Adelaide. It was Wriddhiman Saha who was given the role behind the stumps for the series opener.
Speaking on the docu-series ‘Bandon Mein Tha Dum’ streaming on Voot, which will cover India’s historic triumph at the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, Pant highlighted how disappointed he was to not feature in the first Test
“I got to know one day before the match that I’m not playing. I was disheartened because in Adelaide I had played my first match in Australia when I went last time (during the 2018-19 series),” he said.
India’s 36-all out performance in the second innings of the Test didn’t see axe being swung on many players but Saha was one player who was benched for the remainder of the series.
Pant featured in all of the remaining matches and displayed his counter-attacking batting to attain some memorable results for the team. Ajinkya Rahane, who took over the captaincy after Virat Kohli returned home for the birth of his daughter. Speaking on the docu-series, even Rahane revealed that Pant was quite disappointed to sit on the bench for the series opener.
“He was expecting to play the first game but we went with Wriddhiman because he was a senior player,” Rahane said.
Since that series, Pant has become India’s No. 1 option behind the stumps across all formats.
