Team India's wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant has spoken up about how felt while being on sidelines after horrific car crash that has kept out of action for over a year.
Pant suffered a fatal car crash after his Mercedes collided with the divider and subsequently caught fire. Rishabh Pant was pulled out of the car by the locals and immediately taken to nearby hospital before shifting to Max Hospital in Dehradun.
After getting treatment in Dehradun, Pant was airlifted to Mumbai to undergo knee operation at Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital. Thereafter, Indian wicketkeeper was on bed rest before beginning rehabilitation and recovery process.
Rishabh Pant had spent almost entirety of 2023 at National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru for rehabilitation and was forced to miss out IPL and ODI World Cup.
Rishabh Pant on mental struggles following fatal car crash
Speaking on Star Sports, Rishabh Pant revealed that he avoided watching as much cricket as he can while being on the sidelines due to injuries. The youngster he wanted to discuss a lot of things with Delhi Capitals team during IPL 2023 but couldn't as he was not part of the team.
"I tried not to watch a lot of cricket. Sometimes I realized that what the coaches say is true, that it is tough to just watch from the outside. Because the IPL was on, Delhi was playing and I wasn't feeling good. I felt we could have done a lot of things differently." Pant said.
"I wanted to discuss things with them but then I realized that I'm outside the team. When you're inside the team, things are different. You can control a lot of things."
"You can control a lot of things. While being outside of the team, it's easy to make comments but the captain and coach will be having their own ideas. So it will only cause miscommunication if I also give my opinions." he added.
Rishabh Pant made his first public appearance after horrific car when he attended Delhi Capitals match against Gujarat Titans in the last IPL season. Pant made his way into Arun Jaitley Stadium in his SUV and entered the VIP standees with the help of crutches to cheer for his Delhi Capitals team.
'I was getting stressed': Rishabh Pant
Team India's wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant admitted that he was getting stressed while being off the field for a year after horrific car crash, thus he was forced to limit his watching cricket. The 25-year-old added that he enjoyed watching England's new approach to batting during the Ashes series against Australia last year.
"I realized I was getting stressed and understood that I had to cut down on watching cricket. I did watch the Ashes later on, had a lot of fun as I loved England's new way of playing cricket. It was anyway my style of playing." Pant said.
Pant has been India's reliable middle-order batter who can not only anchor the innings but resorts to attacking style of batting in Tests. Rishabh Pant was one of the instrumental players who helped India clinched the Test series win against Australia following the historic victory at the Gabba.
In the absence of Rishabh Pant, KL Rahul and KS Bharat took up keeper duties across all formats since last year. In the ongoing Test series against England, Bharat has taken up wicketkeeping role while Rahul only focuses on batting.
