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In a chat with Star Sports, Pant talks about the accident, his state of mind, the joy of watching the Ashes 2023 and whether he will drive a car again.
ESPNcricinfo Staff
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The first thought that occurred to Rishabh Pant immediately after his life-threatening car accident on December 30, 2022 was that his “time in this world was over.” Having been “fortunate to have a second life”, Pant, who is expected to play in IPL 2024, said the most important lesson he has learned from this experience is to always have self-confidence.
That was the topic of his revealing conversation with Star Sports, titled Believe: to death and back. Pant spoke about the accident, his mood, the joy of watching the 2023 Ashes and whether he will drive a car again.
“The first time in my life I had that feeling of letting go. I felt like my time in this world was over,” Pant said in the interview, conducted in Bengaluru on August 24, 2023, about eight months after the accident occurred. . when Pant was driving from Delhi to Roorkee to meet his family and crashed his car into the road median. “It was the first time in my life that I had a feeling like that. At the time of the accident, I was aware of the injuries, but I was lucky because it could have been even more serious.”
After receiving initial treatment at a hospital in Dehradun, Pant was flown to Mumbai, where he was under the care of a BCCI specialist consultant. After undergoing surgeries to reconstruct the three ligaments in his right knee, Pant did his rehabilitation at the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru.
“I’m focusing on recovery in isolation from the world,” he said. “It helps me recover quickly, especially when the injury is so serious. To recover, you have to do the same thing every day. It’s boring, irritating, frustrating, but you have to do it.”
“Till the time I start playing cricket, I don’t want to make too many plans for the future. I asked the doctor how long it would take to recover. I told him that everyone talks different things, but you will tell me the most clarity about it.” . He said it would take 16 to 18 months. “I told the doctor that whatever schedule he gave me, I would cut it by six months.”
Pant said he was alive thanks to Rajat Kumar and Nishu Kumar, who pulled Pant out of his van before it caught fire. In a social media post last January, Pant said he was “forever grateful and indebted” to them.
Recounting the details of those initial moments after the car accident, Pant said his right knee had dislocated, twisting 180 degrees to the right while he was lying face down. “There was someone around, so I asked him if he could help me get my leg back into his position. He helped my knee back into his position.”
He was in excruciating pain and then realized how lucky he was to walk away from the accident without losing his leg. “If there was any nerve damage, there was a possibility of amputation. That’s when I felt scared.”
Jovial and cheerful by nature, Pant did not fail to make a cheerful comment. “I had taken a truck, but what I was looking at was a sedan.”
‘Will he play cricket again?’
Puneet Solanki, Pant’s friend and coach, was one of the first to reach the hospital after the accident along with the player’s mother and sister. Solanki recounted Pant’s first words. “Immediately after the first surgery, one of his eyes was open. He asked me to come closer. Then he whispered in my ear: ‘Please take the pads off my legs and hold these gloves.'”
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Pant remembers that moment. He was heavily sedated due to anesthesia. “I remember saying ‘take off the pads quickly, my leg has gotten really heavy.'” Pant’s family and friends could do nothing. Solanki’s biggest and most immediate fear was: Would he ever play Pant again?
‘A second life’
Pant said he was bedridden for about a month. He wanted to get up, walk and do normal things. Last February, he posted a photo on social media of him taking his first steps since the accident. He “wanted to inform all the people who had prayed for my recovery and health.”
Brushing his teeth, bathing and doing things that we do robotically in daily life became exciting for Pant as he began to regain his fitness and started moving, albeit very slowly.
“I never thought I would enjoy brushing my teeth. The first time I took a bath, I didn’t feel like going out. These little things gave me joy because I am lucky to have a second life. Not everyone is lucky enough to get that.
“The doctors also said that there was no fracture after the accident. Yes, my knee injury was serious, but it could have been so big that none of us can know. They always tell me that I am lucky. Of course, it was such” In a horrible accident, the individual feels bad because this happened to me. How can I get lucky? But on the other hand, despite the accident, he was alive.”
‘Rohit bhai He says we will play Rishball’
Around August last year, Pant started picking up the bat, putting on the gloves and thinking about cricket. Delhi Capitals, the IPL franchise of which he is captain, posted a photo of him batting as part of the country’s Independence Day celebrations. Pant admits that he couldn’t “resist” the temptation to bat. The authorities, possibly the BCCI medical staff, reprimanded him. He didn’t care.
Barring the 2023 Ashes, Pant resisted watching cricket. He was seen in the Capitals dressing room last IPL, watching their home games in Delhi. “Itna maza nahin aaya (I didn’t enjoy it much),” Pant said. “I was thinking we could do things this way or that way. I was discussing some things with them (the Capitals think tank). But since it was outside, it was different. “When you’re in it, you control certain things.”
Pant realized he was getting “stressed”, so he stopped watching the IPL. But he followed the 2022-23 Ashes, which he said were fun. “Because England have started playing in a certain way, something I am used to (playing). Rohit bhai He says we will also play Rishball. He says play that anyway, but we’ll get others to follow you too.”
“I will continue driving because I love it”
Pant, now 26, made his international debut exactly seven years ago on February 1, 2017. His last match was the second Test of the Bangladesh series in December 2022. Since then, he has missed the IPL and the local competition. World ODI, in addition to other bilateral series.
He doesn’t want to think too much about the future; instead, his attention is focused solely on the rehabilitation program. But what about driving cars? “I’ll keep driving because I love it,” she said. “Just because there was a setback doesn’t mean you’ll never do those things again. Nowadays they tell me, ‘yaardo not drive bilkul (absolutely).’ But no one was more scared than me. No one was more upset than me.
“As a human being, I want to add things to my life. Not by eliminating what I like to do. The accident is a setback. How do you overcome that? By having the belief. That belief continues to grow and sometimes it can border on the obsessive. But if “You believe in yourself, you can achieve anything.”