The Willow Gladiator

rishabh_pant_madras_courier
Representational image: Public domain. 146 runs from 111 balls for the JSW Sports athlete.
There’s more to Rishabh Pant than cricketing pyrotechnics. A touch of genius.

The psychosomatic power of character is blazing ahead, regardless of conventional wisdom, while holding on to your best strengths. Its foundation? The ability to defer gratification—to drive one’s urges to master art, the primary purpose of motivation. For Rishabh Pant, contemporary cricket’s great character, excellence happens to be more than conviction—a worship of art, not merely the management of one’s perception of willow talent, eminence, or premise.

To rephrase a Kahlil Gibran gem, “Genius is but a Rishabh Pant’s song at the beginning of every innings.” The rest is predictable. Pant is the Leonardo da Vinci of batting, as it were—a culmination, or reflection, of what he wants to do out there at the batting crease, and beyond it, as also behind the stumps. His ‘devil-may-care’ phenomenal exploits with the magical willow that he wields like a mediaeval swordsman, or equally seasoned ballet dancer, at the same time, is a cogent reflection of the little, big man’s cricketing chemistry. It articulates that he is strongly bound to himself-defined, pristine status, charisma, sensitivity, sentiment and affection among the most ardent, or cursory, fan of the sport.

Daringly Deft

Pant is not the new kid on the block. He is a dude on his own block, his benchmark, for all practical purposes. You’d think of him as a swashbuckling batsman, in a zone of his own, doing the audacious, at times. But, when he wields his supreme skills, like a trapeze artist, yet again, falling over a la Rohan Kanhai and directing the ball for a glorious six, you’d know, pronto, that he is on song, from the word go. You’d also think of him not being in alignment with the laws of physics and chemistry of the sport; but, with the art, grammar, syntax and biology of human ingenuity. This is why you are fascinated, also hypnotised, about cricket, a sport like no other, that offers its practitioners, especially the most gifted, its best licence to thrill.



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