When he walks out for the toss with Temba Bavuma on Saturday morning, Rishabh Pant will officially become India’s 38th Test captain. The ebullient wicketkeeper-batter will be as aware as anyone else that he is only warming the chair for Shubman Gill, ruled out of the second Test against South Africa with a neck injury. But he will nevertheless savour the honour, coming as it does less than three years after a life-threatening car accident.
Time for turnaround
Once the unusually unflappable 28-year-old sets emotion aside, he will be seized of the need to orchestrate the turnaround in fortunes that the whole of the country is desperate for. By shooting themselves in the foot on a less-than-ideal surface at Eden Gardens, India find themselves in a must-win situation in Guwahati’s debut as a Test venue.
India opener Yashasvi Jaiswal (right) with head coach Gautam Gambhir on the eve of the second Test against South Africa in Guwahati. Pic/PTI
India played most of the two-and-a-half-day first Test with 10 players once Gill contracted neck spasms after facing just three first-innings deliveries. They must now regroup on a far better pitch at the ACA Stadium — coincidentally, the venue of Pant’s ODI debut in October 2018 — which has been well-watered and which sports a reasonable coating of grass to ensure there is no repeat of the Kolkata fiasco.
Gill’s unavailability means India will be forced into one change; Sai Sudharsan is expected to return to the side, while the hosts will be well advised to balance the inclusion of another left-hander by bringing Nitish Kumar Reddy back into the mix, at the expense of Axar Patel.
Fourth spinner unlikely
It’s unlikely that the Indian think-tank will feel the need for a fourth spinner to complement Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav and Washington Sundar, whose off-spin was used for just one over at Eden. Nitish can double up as the third seamer and offer relief from the profusion of left-handers — Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sudharsan, Pant himself, Washington, Jadeja, Kuldeep — that played right into the hands of off-spinner Simon Harmer, who finished with 8-51 in Kolkata.
Pant’s last two captaincy outings haven’t been memorable for the right reasons. A fortnight ago in Bengaluru, he couldn’t defend 417 in the fourth innings as South Africa ‘A’ pulled off a remarkable victory. Last week, in a stand-in capacity, it was under his watch that India failed to hunt down 124 in the first Test. Pant believes in making his own luck, so maybe he will ensure he is third time lucky. It will help, of course, if he can break a recent toss-losing trend across formats and genders for the senior side, because the red-soil pitch is expected to be at its best for batting over the first two days, though no one is entirely sure how exactly it will pan out.
South Africa will be without pace spearhead Kagiso Rabada for the second straight game. Bavuma, aiming to become the first skipper since Hansie Cronje in 2000 to win a Test series in India, indicated that the experienced Lungi Ngidi might replace Corbin Bosch in an otherwise unchanged side, further adding to Indian apprehension as they try to avoid a second defeat in three home series in the last 12 months.