Rishabh Pant might be a very aggressive batsman in test match cricket and might play a lot of shots, but whenever he tries to defend a delivery, he looks solid in his defense and according to many pundits, it’s his solid defense that gives him the base to launch an onslaught on the bowlers whenever he wants to.
When Pant came to address the press conference after scoring a rapid test hundred against England yesterday, one of the reporters asked him a question specifically about his defense, even though most of the talks yesterday were about his Strokeplay and not about his defense.
Answering the question, Rishabh Pant said that his childhood coach late Tarak Sinha, who was largely responsible for his development as a batsman and as a cricketer, always told him that he could hit the ball well, but it’s his defense that would be very important going forward.
Batting is about both defense and attack: Rishabh Pant
Stating further, Pant said that he always focuses on his defense while batting, but batting is also about converting the scoring opportunities and he feels whether he defends or plays a shot depends on the merit of the delivery. There is nothing premeditated in his mind that he would defend a delivery or a play a shot.
If the ball is in the good area, he tries to defend and since he is secured in his defense, it helps him take advantage of the bad deliveries when they come their way because he is in a position to keep the good deliveries away with his defense.
Even though Rishabh Pant scores his runs at quite a fast clip and yesterday, he scored his hundred at a strike rate of way above hundred, it was not that he slogged every ball. There were a number of high-quality conventional cricket shots which came off his bat on both sides of the ground.
