When two local men spotted a Mercedes lying upside down on the road between Delhi and Dehradun in northern India early one morning in December 2022, they feared it was about to go up in flames.
What Rajat and Nishu Kumar couldn’t have predicted was the identity of the driver.
Rishabh Pant, India’s wicket-keeper and one of the most exciting cricketers on the planet, was lying face down in the wreckage, his right knee twisted at 90 degrees. His first thought, he later revealed, contemplated death: ‘My time in this world is over.’
On Friday, when Pant takes the field for the first Test at Headingley, it will be another reminder that he is lucky to still be alive, let alone to be able to walk, run or hold a bat. As he put it several months after surgeons performed miracles: ‘I’m fortunate to have a second life.’
Just how fortunate is clear from testimony at the time of his crash, which occurred while he was driving to his family home in Roorkee, three and half hours north of Delhi, the Indian capital, in the direction of the Himalayas.
His first stroke of luck was that the impact of hitting the barrier in the middle of the road hadn’t killed him instantly. The second was that Rajat and Nishu pulled him out shortly before the car caught fire. The third was that, having straightened his leg, they pulled him through broken glass without causing a fatal bleed.
Rishabh Pant’s car ablaze after crashing on December 30, 2022
Pant admits he is lucky to be alive after the smash, which he somehow escaped
Pant was bed-ridden for 45 days in hospital recovering from the crash
The burnt-out wreck of Pant’s car the morning after the crash
The sight of Pant lying in his hospital bed shocked visitors. Umesh, a family friend who had been called by Pant’s mum, Saroj, when news of the accident filtered through, told the Indian Express that ‘his teeth were the only thing that wasn’t red’.
Another acquaintance, Devender Sharma, who had been an assistant to Pant’s childhood cricket coach, was even more graphic: ‘His muscles were hanging out of his body. From the back of his neck to the lower waist, you could see his bones.’
He was soon airlifted to Mumbai for surgery. Doctors promised Saroj her son would walk again, but that progress would be slow, and repaired the ligaments in his knee.
Mercifully, the crucial nerves and blood vessels in his leg had escaped unharmed: the alternative might have meant amputation. Pant was bedridden for 45 days, wondering what lay in store.
His reputation as a care-free cricketer belied a ferocious work ethic. When doctors said his recovery time would be 16 to 18 months, he insisted he would knock six off the target – a cricketing metaphor if ever there was one.
In early May 2023, he posted a video of himself walking with the aid of crutches. In July, he began training. In September, he was jogging.
The little things he once took for granted became affirmations of life itself: when he brushed his teeth unaided for the first time, he experienced the kind of pleasure previously associated with reverse-ramping Jimmy Anderson.
Pant entered rehab determined to become a better player than he was before, which was quite an ambition: he was already averaging 43 in Test cricket, good for a wicket-keeper, with a strike rate of 73.
Pant is among the most glorious players to watch when in full flow, averaging 43 with the bat in Test cricket
The wicket-keeper is a player of majestic and unorthodox shots, often to great effect
In 2022 he smashed 146 off 111 balls for India against England at Edgbaston
At Edgbaston in July 2022, five months before the crash, he whacked England for 146 off 111 balls – Bazballing the Bazballers. During his rehab, he enjoyed watching Ben Stokes’s side fight back in the 2023 Ashes. That was his kind of cricket.
So there was barely a dry eye in the house when, on May 23, 2024, he walked out to bat – as captain – for Delhi Capitals in their IPL fixture against Punjab Kings in Mullanpur.
He was cheered to the crease, and made 18 off 13 balls. No one seemed too bothered when the Capitals lost.
Perhaps the surest proof that Pant was back to his impish best came during the fourth Test against Australia at Melbourne in December, when an attempted ramp off Scott Boland was caught by Nathan Lyon at third man.
Up in the commentary box, the former Test opener Sunil Gavaskar exploded, calling the shot ‘stupid, stupid, stupid’, and castigating Pant for letting his team-mates down.
Rather than sulk about his public dressing-down at the MCG, Pant took part in a TV ad for a hotel-booking site in which Gavaskar, playing a guest, messes up his reservation. Sitting in the foyer, Pant screams in his direction: ‘Stupid, stupid, stupid!’
In the next Test, at Sydney, he knuckled down in the first innings for 40 in two and half hours, only to revert to type in the second innings by bashing 61 off 33 balls.
Even before the accident, Pant routinely brought a sense of fun to the middle – not always easy in an Indian team that plays under more pressure than any other side in the world.
Pant celebrates a century in the IPL for his Lucknow Super Giants side last month
Pant has been chastised by the likes of India legend Sunil Gavaskar for his style of play, but it does not stop him
Even before the accident, Pant routinely brought a sense of fun to the middle – not always easy in an Indian team that plays under more pressure than any other side in the world
Now, his near-death experience has confirmed his view that cricket means a lot, but not everything.
Pant has drawn a line under the early-morning accident that changed his life. As one friend puts it: ‘He doesn’t want to play the sympathy card.’
Instead, he will focus on India’s quest to win their first series in England for 18 years.
He will scoop, slice, sweep and upper-cut the bowlers to distraction from No 6, and enjoy the simple pleasure of feeling bat on ball – a pleasure which, two and a half years ago, he was worried might be denied him for ever.
