Rishabh Pant has played all formats for India but his white-ball career didn’t churn out the way he would have aspired to. While he has performed in patches in ODIs and T20Is, he often fell short of making a telling impact, which made him an irregular feature in the white-ball scheme of things.

On the other side of the coin, he has painted an entirely winsome picture in red-ball cricket, showing consistency to score runs. For someone like Pant, finding the balance between aggression and patience, with strong emphasis on either depending on the match situation, came quite naturally.

Rightly so, he turned out to be a formidable, yet valuable weapon for Team India. India have had to deal with middle-order woes for several years but it was Pant who solved the conundrum by leading the attack by example. While he came under fire for his shoddy shot selection at times, he did pick up lessons on the go, before he eventually managed to learn the tricks and trade of how to anchor the innings in Test cricket.

Rishabh Pant’s absence dents Team India's strength in Tests

The 26-year-old has often played a pivotal role in building substantial innings and offering stability, especially in the wake of India’s top order’s batting collapse. Upon combining his gameplay with caution and aggression, he was able to cement his spot in the Test set-up. After an unfortunate car accident on the Delhi-Dehradun highway in late December 2022, things took a turn for the worse for the cricketer.

The Roorkee-born missed several big tournaments including the ICC World Test Championship 2023 final against Australia. His absence cost Team India dearly in the final showdown and had he been there, he would have surely made some difference in the batting attack.

As we all know, he gave all sorts of muddles to Australia in 2020-21, where he played one of the crucial roles in winning and saving a match when it mattered. Even in his absence, India have never been able to find spark in the middle-order. Pant’s absence was felt once again in the recently-concluded Hyderabad Test, when India succumbed to an outrageous 28-run defeat against England.