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| I wasn't in frame of mind to take charge because of nature of wicket: Pant | | | Agencies
SYDNEY, Jan 4: India wicketkeeper batter Rishabh Pant said he batted with restraint on the opening day of the fifth Test against Australia because character of the SCG pitch and the game situation did not allow him to be his customary aggressive self.
Pant, who copped severe criticism from all corners for his callous approach to batting during the previous Test at Melbourne, made a 98-ball 40 in India's 185 all out here on Friday.
"I think in this innings, I was not in a frame of mind where I wanted to take charge of the game because the wicket was doing too much and the kind of situation we were in," Pant said in the post-day press meet.
"I would say there might be a 50-50 chance which I could have taken early on in this innings but sometimes you have to play more secure cricket especially the way, wicket was behaving.
"We knew that if we lost one more wicket here, we might lose 2-3 in quick succession. So that was the idea behind the way I was playing," he added.
Pant's falling pull in Melbourne had prompted legendary Sunil Gavaskar to call the shot "stupid" and in the second innings, he slogged a half-tracker from Travis Head to find the only fielder in the deep when the Test match could have been saved.
"Yes, there is a time to attack, but when you have to feel that from inside. I can't just premeditate that I'm going to play this way. Whatever the game asked me to do on a given day, that's what I tried to do and that is the mindset."
For Pant, the equation is simple - everyone has learnt their own way to skin a cat but also need to learn the other way
"It is a natural habit to back whatever the way you have played the game. But eventually you got to keep on evolving and, that is, I feel there is not one way to play cricket.
"But whatever comes more naturally is always better but you got to find that balance between playing aggressive cricket and having that balance when you play all those shots. That's what I'm trying to do," he explained his rationale.
"Just trying to make the most out of whatever the way I'm playing and just keep it simple, and not to overthink because you know when you're not having the best of the tours you might overthink."
He agreed that blows that he received, one on the left bicep and few in the abdominal area, were painful but that was the need of the hour.
"I mean definitely it's painful but you know sometimes you have to do the hard work for the team and that's okay. Not thinking about where I got hit but just playing the ball to the best of my abilities."
But Pant did agree that he has never been hit six or seven times on the body during a single innings.
"I think this is the first time I've gotten hit so much but you know in cricket you can't plan anything. So everything happens for the first time at some point of time in your career. But that was me today, so, not thinking about that too much," the soft-spoken keeper-batter said. |
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