Scrutinised, criticised, and even ridiculed for months, Rishabh Pant‘s mature knock in India’s first ODI against West Indies felt like a coming of age, writes Aadya Sharma.

It wasn’t unnatural, but it was pretty unusual. It was the second ball of the 32nd over, Jason Holder angled one away from Rishabh Pant: Shortish, with ample width. Pant shouldered arms.

Now, that isn’t what Pant does. Ever. He generally scythes it over point, slashing hard, really hard, as if he wants to beat the stitching out of the ball. Sometimes he tries to do so and gets himself out. This one invited him to have a go, but Pant solemnly left it alone.

It was one of 69 deliveries Pant faced on Sunday, the most he has in a single ODI innings. It fetched him 71 valuable runs, his highest ODI score, but more than anything, it showcased what an unhurried, sensible Pant looks like. In coloured kit, we’ve barely ever seen that.

In his 13th game, and with two Test and two T20 hundreds already to his name, Rishabh Pant finally has his maiden ODI half-century ?#INDvWI pic.twitter.com/kqWeRIpItD

— Wisden (@WisdenCricket) December 15, 2019

So far, Pant has been all about those ridiculously timed sixes, the highlights-reel strokes that have him rated as one of the most exciting prospects in the world. Pant has brandished a detailed portfolio of what he is capable of. He’s played some audacious knocks in the IPL, but has found consistency there too, averaging 45 over the past two seasons. A young talent should be encouraged to express themselves as they try and make the next step up, to over-extend as they find their place, but at some point that has to translate into something meaningful, and the pundits, who need little invitation, were getting twitchy as Pant continued to waste starts.

“Pathetic,” was Kevin Pietersen’s assessment when Pant threw it away in the most important limited-overs game of his career so far, holing out into the deep after garnering 32 in the World Cup semi-final. His first 10 ODI innings had no half-centuries to show, his white-ball struggles all the more puzzling when considering his red-ball excellence.

Sure, he’s scored a first-class hundred in 48 balls, but he’s also scored a triple century in the format. He has two Test hundreds, and both came outside Asia. Pardon the comparison, but Dhoni had none.

Yet, close to three years into international cricket, he’s still far from playing a defining limited-overs knock. It’s been a string of unflattering start-stops and ‘what ifs’. Good players aren’t merely made of skill-sets, attributes, and cameos; they define games and shape totals.

On Sunday, Pant found the chance to show that he can mix mind with matter, ally poise to power. It wasn’t a doughty, stonewalling knock; it still had bits of Pant’s quirkiness, and a final strike-rate of over 100, but the boundaries were earned, interspersed with periods of calm, as dictated by the situation and the ball.

In Chennai, he walked in at 80-3, and got off the mark off only his sixth ball. It became 5 off 15. By 19 off 30, he had already played more deliveries than in 80 per cent of all his white-ball innings for India.

What’s most encouraging however, isn’t that Pant can put together this kind of knock – we already knew he had sublime timing, the ability to stand extremely still when striking the ball, or contort himself in ways unknown, all while finding the meat of the bat – it’s that he wanted too.

“If the ball is there to be hit, I will hit it,” a 19-year-old Pant had said in 2017. With chatter intensifying by those baying for his blood, Pant knew he had to do much more than abide by that overused motto, and this was a clever, calculated knock.

To adjust better to the pitch, Pant used two starkly different stances in his innings, shuffling between outside the crease and deep in it. It mixed up his striking points, and gave him more freedom to use the depth of the crease to create angles, ditching the need to invariably go hard at the ball.

West Indies tried to provide Pant width, as well as lack of pace, to tempt him, but he wasn’t willing to make the mistake he had made in the past, most recently in the third T20I, when he slapped a wide ball to long-off.

A much more compact Pant looked like he knew which deliveries needed targeting. On 19, he didn’t spare a floated delivery in his arc, sitting on one knee and swiping a six to cow corner. On 30, he played a pick-up ramp off a half-volley from Jason Holder. Just past 50, he danced down the track and hoicked Roston Chase over his head.

Timing, more than brute force, can also be Pant’s forte, and he showed that throughout his stay. His very first delivery was a stylish flick, head balanced, wrists rolled all along. And slowly, he made it evident that it’s not all about those ridiculous, disbalanced heaves that magically fly off his bat.

From 80-3, to when he departed at 210-5, Pant had steadied India’s ship in the most un-Pant-like fashion, dropping flashiness for the more fulfilling job of shaping the team’s innings.

“We know what he has gone through over the last 4-5 months. It was a very matured knock,” VVS Laxman said from the commentary box.

By the end of his innings, the raucous crowd at Chennai, MS Dhoni’s adopted IPL home, were chanting ‘Pant! Pant!’ Used to a different brand of big-hitting, they appreciated the young one’s will to adapt. There might yet be more frustrations, more times when Pant gets out just as he’s getting going. But this was a knock that showed what Pant could be, and why he’s worth sticking with.