Rishabh Pant starred for Leicestershire as their first innings top-scorer in the ongoing four-day warm-up game against the Indians; along with Pant, Cheteshwar Pujara, Jasprit Bumrah and Prasidh Krishna had been drafted into the Leicestershire team to get match practise before the Edgbaston Test starting July 1.
Pant played an entertaining knock of 76 runs off 87 balls, which included 14 fours and a six, a scoop hit behind the wicket off Umesh Yadav with which he brought up his fifty.
Pant’s batting against the experienced-filled Indian bowling was the highlight of Day 2 of this tour game. The left-hander smashed 26 off 30 balls from Mohammed Shami, 20 off 23 against Mohammed Siraj and 13 off 12 against Umesh. He rumbled away from 45 off 72 to 70 off 82.
Ravindra Jadeja hugged Rishabh Pant after taking his wicket
He whacked Ravindra Jadeja for a boundary, but the number 1 ICC Test all-rounder had the last laugh as Pant played one shot too many.
Pant went for another mighty slog sweep off Jadeja, trying to take on his favourable match-up of Jadeja spinning the ball into him. However, he couldn’t properly get under the ball and top-edged it; the ball went high up in the air and hung in for a while as Shreyas Iyer calmly settled under it at long-on and gobbled a difficult catch.
Upon the fall of the wicket, Jadeja promptly gave Rishabh Pant a warm hug before most of the other Indian players handshake him and applauded his knock.
You can watch the video here:
| Pant (76), 𝐜 Iyer, 𝐛 Jadeja.@RishabhPant17’s incredibly entertaining innings ends.
He gets a hug from Jadeja & high fives from his @BCCI teammates.
𝐋𝐈𝐕𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐌: https://t.co/DdQrXej7HC
— Leicestershire Foxes
| Pant (76), 𝐜 Iyer, 𝐛 Jadeja.
LEI 213/7
(@leicsccc) Leicestershire were bowled out for 244 in reply to Indians’ 246. Jadeja took three wickets, showing his form and fitness after returning from a rib injury while Shami also took three; Thakur and Siraj bagged a brace each.
In the second innings, Rohit Sharma didn’t come out to open the innings and instead sent KS Bharat, India’s first innings top-scorer, along with Shubman Gill. Gill departed for a quickfire 38-run knock and in came Vihari, who remained unbeaten at 9 with Bharat 31* and India’s score of 80/1.
