Rishabh Pant & the curse of the nervous 90s

When you bat the way Rishabh Pant operates, you are bound to make your own luck. What Pant himself has produced is heaps of runs, especially when the team has needed him the most. However, it has also brought with it the curse. The curse of the nervous 90s. 

The curse struck again on Day 4 of the Bengaluru Test. Pant, having put India back in the game through a 177-run partnership with Sarfaraz Khan, was out on 99. The left-hander chopped on a back-of-a-length delivery from William O’Rourke onto his stumps to bag his seventh score in the 90s in his Test. It is the 88th occasion of a batter being dismissed for 99 in Test cricket. 

He scored 99 off only 105 balls, hitting nine fours and five sixes, the last of which was a 107-metre-long six on the roof of the Chinnaswamy Stadium. 

In only 36 Tests thus far, Pant has six hundreds and seven scores in the 90s. Five of these have come since 2021. Thrice, he has been one boundary away from the three-digit milestone, being dismissed for 97 in Sydney and 96 in Mohali (against Sri Lanka). 

We look back at the other unwanted lists Pant finds himself on, sometimes on the top of the pile:

#1 11th Indian batter dismissed on 99

India batters to get out for 99 in Tests

Pankaj Roy vs AUS, Delhi, 1959

Motganhalli Jaisimha vs PAK, Kanpur, 1960

Ajit Wadekar vs AUS, Melbourne, 1967

Rusi Surti vs NZ, Auckland, 1968

Navjot Sidhu vs SL, Bengaluru, 1994

Sourav Ganguly vs SL, Nagpur, 1997

Sourav Ganguly vs ENG, Nottingham, 2002

Virender Sehwag vs SL, Colombo, 2010

MS Dhoni vs ENG, Nagpur, 2012

Murali Vijay vs AUS, Adelaide, 2014

Rishabh Pant vs NZ, Bengaluru, 2024

#2 Headed towards Dravid & Tendulkar

Most dismissals in 90s for India in Tests

10 - Sachin Tendulkar

9 - Rahul Dravid

7 - Rishabh Pant

5 - MS Dhoni

5 - Sunil Gavaskar

5 - Virender Sehwag

#3 Top of the pile among active players

Most 90s in Tests among active batters

7 - Rishabh Pant

5 - Usman Khawaja

5 - Angelo Mathews

5 - Kraigg Brathwaite 

5 - Steve Smith

#4 Unlucky Wicketkeepers

Wicketkeepers dismissed for 99 in Tests

Brendon McCullum vs SL, Napier, 2005

MS Dhoni vs ENG Nagpur, 2012

Jonny Bairstow vs SA, Manchester, 2017

Rishabh Pant vs NZ, Bengaluru, 2024

#5 Unluckiest Wicketkeeper? 

Most times dismissed in the 90s in Tests (among WKs)

7 - Rishabh Pant

5 - MS Dhoni

4 - Quinton de Kock

#6 One short of Tendulkar & de Villiers

Most times dismissed in the 90s in Tests since 2000

8 - AB de Villiers

8 -  Sachin Tendulkar

7 - Rishabh Pant

7 - Alastair Cook

7 - Matthew Hayden

Mind you, Pant has played only 36 Tests thus far while the players listed alongside him have a much bigger sample size. 

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