Rishabh Pant brought up a well-deserved century during the second day of the first Test against England at Headingley. This was the 27-year-old's seventh hundred in red-ball cricket and his third on English soil as India went past the 400-run mark. Pant was eventually dismissed on 134 by pacer Josh Tongue. The left-hand batter's century was key in the Men in Blue posting a mammoth first-inning total of 471 before getting bundled out.
For England, both Tongue and Ben Stokes were the pick of the bowlers, finishing with figures of 4/86 and 4/66 respectively. After Pant got sent back to the dugout, India were at 453/6 and still had a good chance of making it past the 500-run mark. However, the remaining batters could only muster a total of 18 runs and ended up falling like a pack of cards.
Following Pant's sensational century, owner of IPL franchise Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) Sanjiv Goenka, posted a heartfelt message for the wicketkeeper-batter, who was the captain of the side in the recently-concluded season of the league. In fact, Goenka showered praise on both Shubman Gill (147) and Yashasvi Jaiswal (101) as well for scoring centuries and dominating against the England bowlers.
Goenka heaped praise on all the three centurions
"Three’s a charm with brilliant centuries from @ybj_19, @ShubmanGill, and now @RishabhPant17. Rishabh reaching his ton with a six speaks volumes about the future of Indian cricket. A commanding start to the series. #INDvsENG," Goenka wrote in a post on X.
Notably, Pant had an abysmal IPL 2025 campaign where not only did his side failed to make it to the playoffs, but his performances with the bat remained dreadful throughout the season. The 27-year-old capped off the campaign with just 269 runs in 14 matches under his belt, maintaining a below-par average of 24.45 and a strike-rate of 133.16.
However, he put all his batting woes aside in his first match after the IPL, hitting 12 fours and six maximums in 134-run knock. Interestingly, this was also Pant's highest individual score on English soil, overtaking his previous best of 114 which came back in 2014 at the Oval.