XPost: uk.sport.cricket, aus.sport.cricket
What the hell is GWOAT?
Is it a typo or there is a meaning I don't know.
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https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/ban-vs-ind-2nd-test-dhaka-is-rishabh-pant-the-gwoat-1350894
Is Rishabh Pant the GWOAT?
Longevity will determine where he sits vis a vis Gilchrist and the rest,
but there's no doubt he's already in the debate
Rishabh Pant, MS Dhoni's true successor as wicketkeeper-batter for
India, went past a Dhoni record in Mirpur. Dhoni was out five times in
the 90s, the most by a wicketkeeper in Tests until Pant went past him on Friday.
Some might call it unfortunate, but add his five hundreds, and Pant has
now made 11 scores of 90 or more in just 55 Test innings, an astonishing
rate of once every five attempts.
Pant is already India's best wicketkeeper-batter by a distance, having
scored Test hundreds in England, Australia and South Africa. On form he
is the best batter in the current Indian side. By extension, leaving romanticism and the virtues of pure wicketkeeping skills aside, he is
already India's greatest wicketkeeper. And he isn't a shabby keeper either.
But the Pant comparisons can no longer be restricted to just India players.
Not before long, Pant will be discussed among the greatest wicketkeepers
ever, and will likely surpass them, but it is not too early to try and
place him in the pantheon. In terms of sheer runs, Pant is now the
30th-highest run-getter among wicketkeepers with 2262 at an average of
44.35. His longevity will be tested, but among those who have kept long
enough to score 2000 runs, Pant's average is behind only AB de Villiers,
Andy Flower and Adam Gilchrist.
Pant is not like a lot of other keepers, though. This is not to suggest Gilchrist would have done any less batting higher in the order, but he
mostly batted at No. 7 and didn't perform a specialist batter's duties.
Among keepers who have batted in the top six, Pant is already the
ninth-highest run-getter, averaging 49.67 for his 1540 runs there. De
Villiers, Dhoni, Flower, Gilchrist and Les Ames average higher than him
in these positions, but this is elite company.
Pant hardly gets to score declaration runs. He is playing in a bowling
era where you hardly get flat pitches outside Pakistan, and the attacks
are fitter and deeper than ever before. He is also part of a batting
line-up in transition, and has batted alongside veterans going through
their worst patches. He often finds himself in crisis situations where
there are no tired bowlers to take advantage of. Because he bats in the
top six, these aren't usually nothing-to-lose situations either.
It is difficult to compare him with the past greats on this measure, but instructive to pit him against his contemporary batters, and not just wicketkeepers. Let's just get liberal and include No 4s in this comparison.
Since the start of 2021, Pant has found himself batting at 100 for 2 or
worse on 13 occasions, and has scored 733 runs at an average of 61.1.
Nobody comes close to that average. Batting in these situations, he has
scored 30.3% of his team's runs, again the best among his contemporaries.
It is not just the number of runs but how he gets it, striking at 84.5
per 100 balls in these situations. ESPNcricinfo's Shiva Jayaraman has
even compared his strike-rate with the team's scoring rate until his
entry. When walking in with less than 100 on the board, Pant has scored
twice as quickly as India had been before his entry (42.0), and that
ratio is, again, the best among all batters in this period.
People talk lightly about certain batters' presence. For proper
presence, look no further than the field settings when Pant comes out to
bat even when India are struggling. At 48 for 3 and 72 for 3 in the two
Tests in this series, Pant has walked out with long-on and deep
midwicket in place. On both occasions, Taijul Islam had been bowling beautifully, getting the ball to dip, not letting batters go on the back
foot, but not letting them play attacking drives either. This had
allowed him to be in a position to benefit if the pitch did something.
Pant, though, completely changes the game. To be fair, the in-out fields
were an attacking ploy for him when he came into the side back in 2018.
It worked for a while with Moeen Ali getting him caught in the deep. Now
Pant just picks up the singles and manipulates the field in other areas.
Once he is on, those fielders cease to matter. His power-hitting has
come a long way too: even if he gets too close to the ball, he can
impart enough power to hit flat sixes. Among wicketkeepers, only Dhoni
and Gilchrist have hit more sixes than Pant.
With Pant, you can sometimes get a loose waft if the right kind of
seamer angles, seams or swings the ball across him, but that is hardly
unusual. Every batter will have some weakness, but batting is all about
what you do around that weakness. The fields set for Pant tell you that
the pitching zone for what qualifies as a good ball is smaller for him.
And when you have to aim at a smaller target, you miss more often. He
can cut and drive just as well as he can slog and reverse-ramp James
Anderson. Okay that reverse-ramp might not be as high-percentage as the
other shots, but you get the drift.
Any wicketkeeper will tell you what a physically taxing job it is; how
far Pant moves up among the handful of all-time greats will come down to
his longevity, but it is sure he is already one of them.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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