Kotak: Pant likes to talk about the game, but not when he's batting

In Sydney during the 2020-21 Border-Gavaskar Trophy, Rishabh Pant shocked everyone on the final day when he walked out at the fall of India captain Ajinkya Rahane's wicket in the second over of the day. Pant brought a sensational approach to saving the Test, scoring 73 in the first session. He was 97 off 117 when Nathan Lyon started the 80th over. Cheteshwar Pujara, Pant's partner at the time, reminded him to just be watchful because the second new ball was going to be crucial.

Pant went down the track first ball of the 80th over and was dismissed off a thick outside edge. He was devastated. It seemed as if a crane would be required to take him off the field. He was also angry at Pujara for casting a seed of doubt in his head, which he felt contributed to the miscue.

Two days before the third Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy Test at Lord's, India batting coach Sitanshu Kotak spoke about this side of Pant while talking about how much of a thinker of batting he is. Kotak was asked how important it was for batting partners to not talk to Pant. "Rishabh actually talks a lot about what he does, when he does [it], why he does [it]," Kotak said. "To me, he's spoken, but he's someone who doesn't like talking too much during his innings because he feels that that changes his mindset, and he takes the wrong decision. That's only when he's batting.

"Apart from that, he talks about other batters also, about himself also, and he does [properly plan] what he wants to do because it's not so easy to score Test hundreds or not so easy to be successful at this level without having any planning."

The moves Pant makes might look random, but Kotak suggested there is thought and planning behind each of them. Kotak was happy to have a maverick such as Pant in the line-up but generally insisted on the batters not being too eager to score runs, which might have become a habit after playing - as India have done - on extremely bowling-friendly pitches in the last few years.

"If a batter thinks there is a lot of movement in the pitch, and if there is [half] an opportunity I have to score boundaries because there is a good ball coming [anyway], that is a bad mindset for red-ball cricket," Kotak said. "Anyway, they possess so much skill because of white-ball cricket that they can convert anything in the slot into fours and sixes. They don't have to really think that I want to hit a boundary."

Kotak insisted that this was not an instruction imparted after the first-Test defeat at Headingley but his general philosophy before the start of the series. "We have batted well in both the matches," Kotak said. "I feel we have such skilful batters [who] can score at four an over without going searching for runs. What else is aggressive batting? We are scoring 360 in 90 overs. But our mindset now is to not go looking for boundaries."

That is not necessarily good news for England because they relied on getting batters caught on the boundary to make their way back into the match during both of India's innings at Headingley. In the second Test at Edgbaston, captain Shubman Gill led by example and refused to be content with a big score and play a casual shot. He aggregated 430 runs in the match to bat England out of the game.