‘Not In Frame Of Mind’: Rishabh Pant’s Big Reveal On His Defensive Approach On Day 1 Of Sydney Test

“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.

The 27-year-old batter has not been able to make an impact with the bat so far in the ongoing Border Gavaskar Trophy.

“You want to bat the way that comes naturally to you but keep evolving and trying to keep a balance between attack and defence,” he stated.

Talking about the game, the Indian team batted first and was restricted to just 185 runs in the first innings. None of the Indian batters could manage to spend time in the middle part from Pant who scored 40 runs.

Australia Squad: Pat Cummins (C), Alex Carey (WK), Usman Khawaja, Nathan McSweeney, Marnus Labuschagne, Steven Smith, Travis Head, Mitchell Marsh, Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Josh Hazlewood, Josh Inglis, Scott Boland.

India Squad: Rohit Sharma (C), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Devdutt Padikkal, Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant(w), Dhruv Jurel, Nitish Reddy, Ravichandran Ashwin, Akash Deep, Jasprit Bumrah(vc), Mohammed Siraj, Sarfaraz Khan, Prasidh Krishna, Ravindra Jadeja, Harshit Rana, Washington Sundar, Abhimanyu Easwaran.