Have Australia found a huge chink in Rishabh Pant’s armour?

“I wish he were Australian”.

You can ask any Australian player at the moment, and they would tell you that one player they would want in that middle order is Rishabh Pant. Because you JUST DON’T WANT TO BOWL TO HIM. 

Australian bowlers can close their eyes, and the nightmare in front of them will be Pant. In India’s historic series win Down Under three years ago, the left-hander stormed the weather with some excellent stroke-making against the pacers, evident from his average of 51.67. 

He found boundaries easily (11.3 balls/boundary) and soaked in all the pressure, spending a lot of time at the crease (71.3 balls/boundary). But here’s the catch: Australian right-arm pacers maybe did not try one big thing, that is bowl more from over the wicket. 

Purely from numbers, Pant has found it hard to tackle the ball from over the wicket against the right-arm pacers, especially when playing in SENA countries. In just two years (2020 & 21), all of the left-hander’s dismissals (10) against right-arm pace had been from over the wicket, where his average was 22.1. 

Seven out of the ten dismissals were either back of a length or further up on a length, with the ball moving away from the left-hander, showing a pattern in how he was getting dismissed. But Australia did not try that over the wicket angle enough. And when they did (52 balls), they did not bowl the right lengths.

Only 34.2% of the deliveries were bowled from that channel during that tour. This was a clear weakness. 

Earlier this year in the New Zealand Tests, Matt Henry had great understanding of this and executed it to perfection in the Bengaluru Test. The conditions were extremely challenging and batting was tough indeed, but the plan was on-point.

In that series, whenever right-arm pacers tried bowling over the wicket, Pant had a tricky time, with a strike rate of 44.4, unlike 106.7 when they bowled round the wicket. After all, New Zealand were one of the few teams that had used this weakness of Pant to their fullest advantage, with two of Pant’s worst batting averages from over the wicket being against them. 

In 2020 against the Blackaps, Pant only averaged 17.5 when bowled from over the wicket, which later dipped to 14 when they bowled to the Indian wicketkeeper in England during the World Test Championship 2021 final. Slowly yet steadily more teams started employing a similar approach but perhaps no one has really aced it as much as Australia have now done. 

Australian right-arm pacers - Josh Hazlewood, Pat Cummins and Scott Boland - have bowled 96 balls at Pant in the series, and Cummins has had the most success. The Australian skipper has been on fire against the talismanic batter, with three dismissals and an average of just SEVEN. Crucially, over 80% of the deliveries Australia's right-arm pacers have bowled to Pant in this series have been from over the wicket. 

While Pant has bagged the runs against Boland (26 off 26), even he has drawn a high false shot % of 30.8, showing the left-hander’s vulnerability while the ball is shaping away from him. 

Rishabh Pant's dismissals against Pat Cummins in the series

Dangling the carrot in the fourth and fifth stump line has worked really well for Cummins, who has shaped the ball away from the left-hander all throughout the series. The only time the Australian captain did not stick with that ploy was when he bounced him out but still used the angle to his best use. 

It is the first time Pant has looked vulnerable in an entire series against the ball moving away from that angle. Perhaps, Cummins and co could have just found a huge chink in Pant’s armour that other teams might take note of. 

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