India's newly-appointed vice-captain Rishabh Pant scored his third Test century on England soil. As Pant reached his century with a one-handed six off Shoaib Bashir, legendary Indian cricketer-turned-commentator Sunil Gavaskar lauded him by saying, "Superb, superb, superb". Gavaskar lauded Pant months after the southpaw's shot in Australia irked him which led to the viral "stupid, stupid, stupid" comment. A day after, Pant was asked by Cheteshwar Pujara how he felt when he learnt about Gavaskar's comments.
"Stupid, stupid, stupid se superb, superb, superb aaya tha. Toh kya feeling thi? (From Stupid, stupid, stupid to superb, superb, superb came. How was the feeling?)" asked Pujara on Sony Sports Network.
"Feeling toh vahi hai jo aapko bhi hai is samay. Bahut accha lagta hai, jab aap apni khaamiyon pe work karte ho. Jo setback hai usko comeback mein change karte ho. Vahi waala thought process tha. Maine kara hoga aisa but luckily main usko change kar paya vaisa. Hard work karke, focus aur discipline rakh ke. Toh woh bahut exciting tha mere liye. (The feeling is the same as you have at this time. It feels extremely good when you work on your weaknesses and turn setbacks into comebacks. That was the thought process. I was lucky to overcome my weaknesses. Hard work, focus and discipline were massively involved.)" Pant told the broadcaster.
Pant also opened about his somersault celebration upon reaching century. He revealed that he had a few celebrations in mind but chose to go ahead with somersault as it comes easy to him.
“I had three celebrations in mind. One of them was ‘let the bat do the talking’. Then I thought, I’ll stick with mine. I’ve been doing it since childhood (the somersault). I trained in gymnastics during school,” the 27-year-old said.
“In school, I did gymnastics. I’m very used to it. Even if you wake me up in the middle of the night, I can do a somersault. After the accident, I had to work even harder at it. But I put in the work, and now it’s easy for me again," he added.
Another record in sights
Pant scored 134 runs from 178 balls. His knock was studded with 12 fours and six sixes. The southpaw was dismissed lbw by Josh Tongue.
On Day 4 of the Test series opener, Pant's services will be needed again. India were 90/2 at Day 3, Stumps. Pant will have a record in sights as well. He needs 10 more runs to record most runs by a wicketkeeper-batter in a Test in Headingley. Currently, the record belongs to New Zealand's Tom Blundell who scored 143 runs (55 and 88 not out) in 2022.
Also, Pant is the only visiting wicketkeeper-batter to score more than 200 runs in a Test. He scored 203 runs (146 and 57) against England at Edgbaston, Birmingham in 2022. However, his knock went in vain as India lost the Test.