Rishabh Pant leaves behind MS Dhoni to achieve this major milestone as wicketkeeper in Test Cricket

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Bengaluru, March 15: Star India wicketkeeper-batsman Rishabh Pant was adjudged the player of the series after the conclusion of the second Test between India and Sri Lanka on Monday (March 14).

The 24-year-old cricketer from Delhi was awarded for his impressive performance in the matches held in Mohali and Bengaluru. The explosive left-handed batsman scored 185 runs in three innings with 96 being his highest. Pant slammed two brilliant half-centuries in the two Tests.

His fifty in the second innings of the Pink Ball Test at M Chinnaswamy Stadium came off just 28 balls and the southpaw thus became the quickest Indian to slam a half-century in the red-ball format.

The talented cricketer broke legendary Kapil Dev's 40-year-old record (50 off 30 balls)to claim the big record. The youngster put on a display of his explosive batting and entertained the crowd at the arena.

Pant looked a far improved wicketkeeper as well in the just concluded bilateral series. The glovesman kept the wickets exceedingly well and picked up some sharp catches against spinners.

He also seemed a lot confident when enquired about taking the referrals. More often than not, Pant gave the right piece of advice to captain Rohit Sharma on whether or not to go for the Decision Review System (DRS).

For his impactful performances in the two matches, Pant pipped his teammate Ravindra Jadeja - who scored 175* and bagged 9 wickets in the Mohali Test - to win the player of the series award.

Pant, thus, became the first-ever wicketkeeper from India to win the player of the series award. Pant's feat is something that even his predecessor MS Dhoni too couldn't achieve in his career of 90 Tests.

After being adjudged the player of the series, Pant said at the post-match conference, "I think both (improvement in batting and keeping), you need to keep evolving, I've made mistakes in the past and want to keep improving."

While talking about his quickfire knock at M Chinnaswamy, Pant said, "It's not in my mindset, the wicket was difficult to play, so I thought I will look for quick runs. I'll do whatever the team management wants me to do. I think it's more about confidence, previously, I used to think too much, now I'm only focusing on every ball."