Sunil Gavaskar wanted to do a backstand after Rishabh Pant’s hundred; KL Rahul on calming him down: ‘Hard to understand

While Sunil Gavaskar revealed that even he felt like to do a backstand celebration like Rishabh Pant during the Headingley Test, KL Rahul spoke about the wicketkeeper-batter’s unpredictable batting style. read more

Record-breaking Rishabh Pant is receiving a lot of praise from the heavyweights of the cricket fraternity and at the forefront of it is his batting partner KL Rahul and former India captain Sunil Gavaskar. Gavaskar, who had criticized Pant for his batting in Australia, has been converted into a big fan by the wicketkeeper-batter who smashed two centuries in the ongoing Test against England at Headingley.

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Pant is the first wicketkeeper-batter from India to score two hundreds in the same Test match and only the second wicketkeeper-batter to do so in the history of cricket, after Andy Flower.

Gavaskar, Rahul react to Pan’t history-making century

After Pant completed his historic ton, Gavaskar was seen asking the 27-year-old to do the somersault celebration ; however, the batter opted for a new celebration, signalling something towards his eye.

Later, while speaking on Sony Sports, Gavaskar revealed that even he felt like doing the backstand/somersault celebration, but opted against it due to his age.

“You know what, I’ve got to confess that after that I came here and I, and I tried not to do the backflip, no chance of, at my age, but I used to do the backstand and I was looking to do the backstand,” Gavaskar said.

“So if I could do it successfully then, then I would have shown it here, but I wasn’t able to,” he added.

Meanwhile, KL Rahul, who also hit a hundred in India’s second innings and was at the crease when Pant scored his history-making century, spoke about the wicketkeeper-batter’s unpredictable batting style and how he tried to calm him down during his innings.

“It is hard for us to understand his mindset but you let Rishabh Pant be Rishabh Pant. There is obviously a method to his madness as he is averaging 45 in Test cricket. There is a lot of thinking about the outrageous shots he plays. You just try to calm him down as much as possible between balls,” Rahul told reporters after the day’s play.

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Rahul and Pant helped India set a target of 371 for England, who finished Day 4 on 21/0. They need 350 more runs on Day 5 of the first Test to win the match.

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