Rishabh Pant brought his “A” game into action to notch up his maiden ton in International cricket. The Delhi batsman scored when the team was trapped in a tricky situation to keep them in the game.
Earlier, KL Rahul rescued India after stitching a 118 run partnership with Ajinkya Rahane. After the departure of Rahane(37), India lost the momentum as Hanuma Vihari(0) could not cope up with a bouncer bowled by Ben Stokes and edged it past to Jonny Bairstow.
Just when a defeat was on the cards, Rishabh Pant counter attacked and took the attack to the opposition. The aggressiveness of Rahul and Rishabh put England on the backfoot. Pant continued to play sensibly but made the full use of the lose deliveries.
Playing on 95, he brought his real Daredevil into action and slog swept the ball bowled by Adil Rashid away over deep mid to bring up his maiden test hundred.
Stat Alert
*Pant started his test career with a six and now bring his maiden ton with a six
*He is now the Indian wicket-keeper batsman with highest individual score in England, surpassing MS Dhoni’s 92 runs.
*He is the second youngest Indian wicket-keeper batsman to hit his maiden test 100.
20y 150d A Ratra v WI, 2002
20y 342d R PANT v Eng, 2018
21y 188d V Manjrekar v WI, 1959
* Pant is the fourth Indian batsman to reach his maiden test 100 with a six
Kapil Dev v WI, Delhi, 1978/79
Irfan Pathan v Pak, Bangalore, 2007/08
Harbhajan Singh v NZ, Ahmedabad, 2010/11
Rishabh Pant v Eng, Oval, 2018
* He is now the first Indian keeper to score a 100 in the fourth innings.
