Same methods, different outcomes: Why Rishabh Pant's IPL returns don't match his Test greatness

When you think of Rishabh Pant batting, an image crosses your mind.

Maybe of him stepping out to a spinner, turning a regulation ball into something no field could have been set for. Maybe of his one-handed swing, the bat almost leaving his grip, the ball still somehow finding the middle. Maybe of a paddle played while falling over, or that familiar grin after he has tried something funky that probably would not occur to anyone else.

Pant’s batting has always had that effect. You remember the audacity first, then the score.

Against Afghanistan, though, that version of him took a while to arrive.

Pant walked in after a difficult few months. His move to Lucknow Super Giants had not gone to plan over the last two seasons. The tag of being the IPL’s most expensive player followed him; the runs did not come regularly enough; LSG struggled; and he eventually stepped down as captain. India’s Test vice-captaincy also moved from him to KL Rahul. Around him, the conversation again turned to role, responsibility and situation, and he was under scrutiny from every direction.

He crawled to seven in the first 21 balls, giving little away. He blocked and left, quiet and almost timid, as if batting to all the voices around him. It was not a version easily associated with him in Tests, and you wondered if it had begun to weigh him down.

But soon the old image returned.

Pant skipped down against off-spinner Abdul Malik and launched him for six. Two balls later, he swung a full toss over cow corner. The next ball was short, and he rocked back to pull it into the crowd. Three sixes in five balls, a final score of 81 in 121, and he was here again: the smile slower to arrive, perhaps, but still unmistakably his.

And as familiar as it felt in Test cricket, it also sharpened the question that has followed him through the IPL. If these are the shots, the range and the imagination that seem made for T20 cricket, why has the format not always found the best version of him?

In Tests, Pant has made his name as India’s great disruptor, averaging 43.37, with eight hundreds, six of them outside Asia. He has seven more scores in the nineties, a reminder of how much more imposing the record could have looked after only 50 Tests. In the IPL, though, the returns have not made the same impression. He averages 33.60 at a strike rate of 146.79 overall, but since moving to LSG, the numbers have been far less convincing: 581 runs at 26.40, striking at 135.74, with only three fifty-plus scores in 26 innings.

Pant’s Test batting can look chaotic because the peaks are so vivid, but there is a method to the madness. According to CricViz, he attacks 34.8 per cent of the balls he faces in Tests - well above the 26.1 per cent recorded by other top-six batters in the format since his debut. In the IPL, too, Pant attacks more than most. His attack percentage is 68.6, compared to 62.4 for other top-six batters.

That is the first clue. Pant is an attacking batter in both formats, not just in the IPL. In the tournament, his control percentage is 80.5, almost identical to the 81 recorded by other top-six batters. His false-shot percentage is also similar: 19.4, compared to 18.9 for the same group.

Pant, then, is not making far more mistakes than everyone else in the IPL. The issue is what happens when a batter attacks more often than most, but without a major control advantage to offset that extra risk.

That is where the formats begin to separate. In Tests, Pant can absorb pressure, wait for a better option, and pick the moment to change the tempo. In the IPL, the innings is shorter, dot balls carry more weight, the release shot often has to come earlier, and the cost of getting it slightly wrong is higher.

The shot-wise numbers give a clearer picture. The pull is a good example of why this is not simply about Pant’s attacking game failing to translate. He strikes at 165.7 with the shot in Tests and 192.2 in the IPL, while the balls per dismissal are almost identical, 30.9 and 30.4.

The bigger issue comes with the slog and slog-sweep, two shots that have long been central to his ability to change a Test innings quickly. They are not Pant’s biggest run-scoring shots overall, and they are not being used here to explain his whole game. They are useful because they show the trade-off most clearly.

In Tests, Pant has scored 503 runs off 155 balls with the slog and slog-sweep at a strike rate of 324.5. He is dismissed once every 12.9 balls while playing them. In the IPL, those same shots have brought him 686 runs at a strike rate of 257.9, but he is dismissed once every seven balls.

The IPL dismissal areas add another clue. The regions where Pant has been dismissed most often are mid-on, backward square leg and mid-off. He has fallen 15 times through mid-on, 13 through backward square leg and 12 through mid-off, with a dismissal every 23, 25 and 21 balls, respectively.

That stands out because these are productive areas for him in Tests. He has 404 runs through mid-off, with 20 sixes and five dismissals, 515 through mid-on, with 42 sixes and 10 dismissals, and 384 through square leg without being dismissed. In Tests, those areas have often brought him reward. In the IPL, they carry higher risks.

The midwicket numbers show that Pant’s core scoring area is still working. In the IPL, he has made 521 runs off 246 balls against pace through midwicket, with a dismissal every 82 balls, and 417 off 255 against spin, with a dismissal every 64 balls. Those are strong returns. The danger is when the same attacking intent is dragged straighter, wider or squarer.

In the end, the broader T20 question is not only about one shot or one scoring area. It is also about whether Pant has kept pace with a format that has moved quickly around him.

There have been periods when he was ahead of that curve. Between 2016 and 2019, Pant struck at 162.69 in the IPL while averaging 36. Since then, his strike rate has dropped to 141.18, and his average to 31.89. That would be notable in any case, but it stands out more because scoring rates around the league have gone the other way.

It is not that Pant has become a defensive batter. The problem is almost the opposite: he is still taking risks, but they are not producing the same impact as they used to.

This is why the question around Pant is more complicated than asking why a naturally attacking batter has not dominated a naturally attacking format. T20 batting is not only about range. It is also about repeatability: which shots can be used again and again, which scoring areas can be accessed safely, and how a batter keeps moving when the boundary option is blocked.

There have been periods of high impact, and his overall IPL record remains good, but the recent returns have made the question harder to ignore.

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