Kolkata:
The flamboyant Rishabh Pant on Monday acknowledged the influence and guidance of Ashish Nehra after he survived his horrific car accident, saying the former India seamer’s advice to “stay happy” stood the keeper-batter in good stead during a difficult phase. Pant met with the accident on the Delhi-Dehradun highway on the night of December 30, 2022. His car caught fire but he made a lucky escape even though his injuries were quite severe and needed multiple surgeries. “I think one advice which really helped me was from Ashish Nehra,” Pant recalled in a freewheeling chat during CII Eastern Region’s interactive session – ‘India@100: Leadership Insight from the Sports Economy’.
“He is a senior from my club also. He just came to me, saw me, and he told me, ‘I had lots of injuries. Just one thing if you can do is keep yourself happy. Do things that makes you feel happy. And keep following that’.
“I think that advice really stood with me and helped me to go through my injury,” the 27-year-old Pant added.
After a year of intense recovery and rehab, he returned to professional cricket during the Indian Premier League last year and made his international return in the T20 World Cup in the Americas.
For someone who preferred doing everything by himself, losing control over his own body was the most difficult thing to digest.
“I’ve been playing cricket day in and day out since I was a kid. And just seeing me so immobile in my life — that was the hardest part,” he said.
“So even a small thing, brushing my own teeth, was harder for my life. I just couldn’t do it for the first one month at least.” It was at that moment Pant realised that he needed to surrender to the process.
“I have to accept that I can’t move on from this in one day or two. That is where I calmed myself down and just realised that there is no point being negative and criticising yourself every day.
“For me, it might be eating food. For someone else, it might be talking to someone. So you have to find your own way.”
Gratitude over everything
The accident changed his perspective on life.
“Once your perspective to life changes, the perspective to sports definitely changes. Because how you see life, eventually it will follow,” he said.
Pant realised how people often take most things in life for granted.
“Simple things like waking up every day, brushing your own teeth, walking towards your washroom… small, small things but it plays a huge part. And as day to day life, we take it for granted. I think that is my learning from it.” For a professional cricketer, success is often measured in runs, wickets and records but Pant’s brush with the near-fatal accident reshaped his definition of it.
“You want to be successful each and every day. But a lot of time in sport it might not happen,” he said.
“But that doesn’t mean you are going to beat around the bush and put you down always. You have to have a mindset where you push yourself. ‘Yes, I can be better’.” After leaving Delhi Capitals, Pant was acquired by Lucknow Super Giants for an IPL record fee of Rs 27 crore in the mega auction last year, after which he was made the captain of his new franchise.
Pant, who is going through a lean patch in the ongoing IPL, has a simple philosophy to deal with tough times: back the process, trust instincts.
“We should be following a certain process and that is part of my day-to-day life,” he said.
“When you keep it very simple, like if you are watching a wicket, how it’s going to play, what this batsman is going to do, what we can execute in a better way.
“Like Mahi bhai (MS Dhoni) said, if you can keep it simple for longer period of time, I think you’re going to get the fair result.” He added, “I’m someone who lets that instinct take over during the game time. Because, in pressure situations, what happens is that you don’t back your decision sometimes. So I feel that is really important for me.” For Pant, leadership is about keeping the team like one big family.
“The word ‘team’ means just one family. We always talk about how we can create an environment where everyone feels comfortable.
“A team for me is like having one goal — collective people having one goal and working towards one goal.” Cricket has also taught him to back people during their worst days.
“Everyone on the field will not have the greatest of day. But at that moment, can you give that guy enough confidence, so he can deliver? You know, one ball matters. One extraordinary something. One extraordinary catch. One extraordinary run out.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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