NEW DELHI: Speaking of which Rishabh pants's game-winning 89 not out against Australia at the Gabba in the 2020-21 season Border Gavaskar Trophy Series, former Indian head coach Rahul Dravid suggested that the wicketkeeper-batsman “accepted”. Test cricket like a duck to water” and described his performance in the red-ball format as “sensational”.
On the final day of the fourth and final Test, when India were aiming for an impressive score of 328, Pant pulled off his magnificent feat. His counter-attacking approach not only secured a historic 3-wicket win but also broke Australia's 32-year unbeaten streak at the Gabba and gave India a 2-1 series win.
Border Gavaskar Trophy
“I think Rishabh’s performance was incredible. “To see Rishabh there, looking to score 89 to win the Test match at the Gabba, with everything on the line and such a depleted team to produce such a performance under that pressure – truly sensational,” Dravid told Star Sports.
In eight Test matches against Australia, Pant scored 662 runs at an average of 55.16, including two fifties and a hundred. Notably, he cemented his reputation as a match-winner by helping India win the Border Gavaskar Trophy in the 2018-19 and 2020-21 tours.
“What a special cricketer he was. He just gravitated towards Test cricket like a duck to water “I'm not saying he replaced him, but in Test cricket his performances were definitely absolutely sensational,” Dravid added.
Additionally, Dravid reacted to the fact that despite a number of outstanding performances by Indian batsmen in Australia over the years, his double century in the 2003-04 Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Adelaide is still a fan favorite.
There will be many firsts in the India-Australia Test in Adelaide!
India were struggling at 85/4 in the second Test of the series after the Australians scored 556 runs VVS Laxman came out to join Dravid at the crease. Dravid scored a knock of 233 runs as part of the duo's 303-run partnership for the fifth wicket.
“I'm grateful for it, but I wouldn't have voted for myself, so to speak. I probably also have a strong tendency towards topicality. I think the way India performed in the last two series in Australia. “The winning series there in particular counts for a lot, no matter how great my performances or India's performances were, we couldn't really win that series.
“We were close but we couldn’t get the wickets we needed on the last day in Sydney. The last two teams that went to Australia did that and that's a fantastic achievement – a great achievement – and there was that.” “I don't know which ones were on your list, but there were some absolutely sensational performances too in the last two series,” Dravid said.
As India chased a 230-run target, won the game by 4 wickets and took a 1-0 series lead against Australia for the first time in Australia, the batting icon continued his incredible first innings performance with an unbeaten 72-run knock in second inning.
Reflecting on batting with Laxman, Dravid said, “I thought, 'I got the captain out. I'd better do something useful.' It was completely my mistake that Sourav (Ganguly) was eliminated. I admit it was my mistake. But I think you're just trying to build a partnership. Just trying to achieve the goal is a huge score. They're just trying to build a partnership.
“The thing with Laxman and I is that we have played some really big partnerships before this. We did it once in Calcutta in 2001 and even in a domestic game when we played South Zone vs West Zone for the first time – we really had one.” So we fought together quite a bit and built that partnership. Not that we thought about it when we got there, but I think the idea was really just to fight and try to build partnerships, put something together.
“As the partnership grew, the wicket became quite suitable for batting, the ball became a bit softer and the runs started flowing a lot easier. It's always nice to bat with Laxman too, right? Because he's just a great player. “He was a really great player who bounced back, which in a way helped me a lot with the way we approached our innings,” Dravid recalls.
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