There’s no better way to celebrate that with a prestigious win.
A few weeks ago experts were busy discussing Rishabh Pant’s slow disappearance from red-ball cricket. The general consensus is that Pant has been relegated to the white-ball format exclusively. Pant has not commented on the matter yet, but he is not trying to keep low or stay away from cricketing action in the meanwhile. Rishabh Pant was busy captaining the Rest of India team in the Irani Cup one-off match. First-class domestic is an exquisite format of the sport in India.
For Rishabh Pant, it became even more special as he became the first captain to win a tournament on his birthday. Rest of India team successfully defeated Jammu and Kashmir in the Irani Cup to give Pant the much-deserved victory. According to sources, Pant has received a 5 million rupee prize for his big victory. The match was a hard-fought battle, and even though Pant couldn’t set a personal milestone, he ensured that his team did not lose ground during any innings.
The future of white ball cricket looks bright in Pant’s hands
Rest of India did not have the best start to the special match. During their first innings, they only managed to score 237 runs. Pant could only score 10 runs in the first innings, while the likes of Shikhar Mohan, Ravichandran Smaran, and Sarfaraz Khan dragged the team to a respectable total.
Jammu and Kashmir went all out right from the first innings to give Rest of India a hard time. J&K went on to score 278 runs in their first innings. Their batsmen Paras Dogra and Abdul Samad were starting to form a dangerous partnership, but thankfully, the Rest of India kept plucking the wickets in a timely fashion. Now the situation was almost neck and neck. J&K did not have a significant lead, but Rest of India had to give them a better total to chase.
While their second innings progressed much better in comparison, Rest of India could only manage to score 319 runs. They set a target of 279 runs for J&K. Now it looked like an easy job for J&K considering how they performed in the first innings, but this time the bowling attack of Rest of India was top-notch. Similar to the previous innings, the trio of Mukesh Kumar, Mukesh Choudhary, and Akash Deep struck gold and stopped their batting lineup for only 111 runs, finally handing the victory over to Rest of India.
