Rishabh Pant, who found himself on the receiving end for altering his approach and playing against the grain on the first day of the Sydney Test, returned to his usual ways, smashing a 33-ball 61 as he breathed some life into the contest against Australia on Saturday, January 4. India were in the middle of another collapse as they went from 42/0 to 59/3 before Pant decided to unleash himself and broke multiple records with the second-fastest fifty by an Indian in Tests.
Pant made his intentions clear by hitting Scott Boland for a six by dancing down the track, who had already gotten on the Indian nerves. But the Indian wicketkeeper batter didn't stop. Pant kept going for his shots and didn't care for how they looked. India needed runs at that point and he scored them. Pant had a chance to break his own record of the fastest fifty by an Indian (28) but got it in just one extra ball (29) by hitting a six off Mitchell Starc.
The fun ended at 61 for Pant but he made sure he enforced some runs as the likes of Ravindra Jadeja just wanted to spend time on the crease. Pant with his knock also went past Kapil Dev's feat of the fastest 50-plus knock by an Indian in Tests in terms of strike rate as the left-hander's 61 came at 184.84.
Highest batting strike rate in a Test innings by an Indian (50-plus score)
184.84 (61 off 33) - Rishabh Pant (vs AUS) - Sydney, 2024
161.81 (89 off 55) - Kapil Dev (vs ENG) - Lord's, 1982
161.29 (50 off 31) - Rishabh Pant (vs SL) - Bengaluru, 2022
158.33 (57 off 36) - Shardul Thakur (vs ENG) - The Oval, 2021
158.13 (68 off 43) - KL Rahul (vs BAN) - Kanpur, 2024
Fastest fifty by Indians in Tests
28 balls - Rishabh Pant (vs Sri Lanka) - Bengaluru, 2022
29 balls - Rishabh Pant (vs Australia) - Sydney, 2024
30 balls - Kapil Dev (vs England) - Lord's, 1982
31 balls - Yashasvi Jaiswal (vs Bangladesh) - Kanpur, 2024
31 balls - Shardul Thakur (vs England) - The Oval, 2021
Jadeja and Washington Sundar were in the middle for India at the stumps on the second day and the visitors will be keen to stretch their lead to 200 in the third innings, especially with all the uncertainty over Jasprit Bumrah, who had left the stadium for scans due to his back issue.
