Rishabh Pant’s Unprecedented Six-Hitting Prowess in Test Cricket
Ratopati
August 22, 2026
Five years ago – has it really been that long? – Rishabh Pant walked in with India having lost four wickets and trailing England by more than 500 runs on the second day of the Chennai Test.
He had faced 11 balls when Jack Leach came on to bowl. In front of the left-handed batter, there was a large area outside the off-stump marked by the footmarks, ready to be exploited.
This is one of Test cricket’s perennial problems. It is a game played from two ends and over many days, where the conventional ‘right-arm over’ bowling is most common. As the game progresses over days, the geometry of the pitch dictates that footholds develop outside the left-handed batter’s off-stump. Left-arm orthodox spinners are best placed to exploit these footholds.
Thousands of batters have faced this problem throughout
Thousands of batters have faced this problem throughout Test history. Hundreds have faced it when their team was trailing by a huge margin. It is difficult to say if anyone else has tried to solve it the way Pant did. Even with England packing the on-side boundary, he was determined to step out of his crease, get as close to the pitch of the ball as possible, and repeatedly hit the ball out of the ground.
Leach bowled five overs in two spells while Pant was at the crease. Pant scored 48 runs off his 21 balls, hitting five of them to the boundary.
This was audacious and perhaps unprecedented. If one were to discard the conventional wisdom learned over years of watching Test cricket, it was also purely logical. Pant is such a gifted six-hitter, and so confident in his ability to hit sixes, that he dared to attack the opposition’s most dangerous bowler in such a situation and take him out of the attack. He certainly trusted his six-hitting ability more than his ability to counter Leach’s long spell conventionally.
It is one thing to back that plan
It is one thing to back that plan in an innings and succeed. But to bat like this, averaging nearly 44 with over 3600 runs, while playing as a specialist wicketkeeper, in an era of accurate bowling attacks and result-oriented pitches, and to hit six of his 10 hundreds away in Australia, England and South Africa? There is one word to sum this up – ‘genius’.
On Tuesday, playing against Sri Lanka in Galle, Pant hit his 100th six in Test cricket. It was an innings in his own unique ‘Pantian’ style. It was naturally in Pant’s style because it was quick, entertaining, and filled with creative shots played to unexpected parts of the ground.
It was also in Pant’s unique style in another sense because he scored 66 off 69 balls, while the other Indian batters and extras managed only 46 runs off 99 balls after he came to the crease, losing six wickets.
This is a batter whose unique methods hover
This is a batter whose unique methods hover on the edge of possibility. When successful (which has been most of the time), it opens up astonishing possibilities. When unsuccessful (which has been rare but memorable), they become objects of ridicule and criticism. Even our years of watching Test cricket had not prepared us for Rishabh Pant. Even our own years of watching Rishabh Pant have only partially helped us understand him.
In the first innings in Galle, Pant got out trying to hit a six off an off-spinner in the very first over after Sri Lanka took the second new ball. This might have seemed unnecessary to many of us, but what do we really know? Even in Pant’s best innings, there are instances where he has stepped out and hit fast bowlers for sixes in the first three or four balls he has faced.
He has adopted this style in some innings and played calmly and composedly in others. Those early risks have either faded from memory or become part of his brilliant art of risk-taking. But every moment he has failed when taking an seemingly unnatural risk is clearly remembered by us.
Now, in the second innings, with the need
Now, in the second innings, with the need to extend the lead and the challenges of weather and time looming, India needed Pant to be himself. Sri Lanka also came onto the field with an excellent plan and executed it commendably.
Fast bowlers set up for short balls and bowled accordingly. Spinners got the ball to turn a lot and fielded in a way that prevented straight drives down the ground.
Pant reacted exactly as you would expect. He repeatedly used the reverse-sweep and played it accurately. He dealt with the short ball with two different plans. One plan was to step out of the crease, create space, and create an opportunity to hit straight.
He stepped out to Lahiru Kumara’s ball, got
He stepped out to Lahiru Kumara’s ball, got close to the pitch of the ball, and hit it out of the ground. Against Asitha Fernando’s ball, he couldn’t get close to the pitch, but still managed to swing his hips and hit the ball so hard that it went straight to mid-off, with his back foot lifting off the ground.
The other plan took Pant’s body in the opposite direction: he would step back and cross, rather than just step back and cross. The objective was to pull or guide the ball between fine leg and deep square leg. One of Kumara’s balls hit Pant’s shoulder and helmet.
Eventually, Pant got out caught by the wicketkeeper, hitting the ball on the pads while playing such a back-and-across pull shot. But 23 runs had already been scored off 15 balls in this contest.
One of those runs was a memorable shot
One of those runs was a memorable shot that took Pant from 47 to 53 and his Test 100th six from 99, clearing the leaping deep backward-square-leg fielder. This shot will be remembered for a long time due to its technique, the use of the line, and the unnatural use of body parts. Pant often hits sixes with one hand, using the top hand; but this shot was played entirely with the bottom hand.
With this shot, Pant entered a club with only three other members. Ben Stokes, Brendon McCullum, and Adam Gilchrist hit their 100th six in Test cricket facing the 9042nd, 9756th, and 6578th balls respectively. Pant, however, reached here in just 4918 balls.
Pant has scored 600 runs from sixes out of his 3662 Test runs. This is nearly one-sixth of his total runs. Among all other batters who have hit 50 Test sixes, only Tim Southee and Shahid Afridi have scored a large percentage of their total runs from sixes. Southee was a lower-order aggressive batter, while Afridi was a unique hitter who, given his record, probably should have played more Tests than he did.
Neither came close to Pant’s level: Pant
However, neither came close to Pant’s level: Pant is one of the best middle-order batters of his time and is almost certain to be in the country’s ‘all-time Test playing eleven’ due to his batting prowess.
In short, hitting sixes in Test cricket has become such a focal point of Pant’s career that it is unprecedented. Although batters are becoming more adept at hitting sixes through T20 training, it is difficult to say if this will become a template for future Test cricketers.
You can train yourself to hit sixes off various lines and lengths, but other skills are also needed to make hitting sixes a primary weapon of successful Test cricket. A mathematical mind is needed to know whom to attack and when, considering the circumstances and the state of the match.
Defensive play is required to avoid challenging times
Defensive play is required to avoid challenging times. Also, the ability to stand strong amidst fluctuations in public opinion and success and failure is needed.
Pant has all these in abundance. These qualities have helped him turn the extremely risky art of hitting sixes into a logical weapon and a fundamental element of a great career.
His methods should not work, but as we watch in amazement and terror, unable to comprehend what we are seeing, he has proven those methods successful against all types of bowling, all over the world.
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Source: english.ratopati.com
