Pant’s painful innings will stick in the mind but should he really have risked further injury?

Rishabh Pant’s hobbling batting was hard to watch before he was bowled by Jofra Archer, although he did reach his fifth half-century of the series. Photograph: Martin Rickett/PA

Rishabh Pant moves in his own way. Last month he opted for a somersault over the standard bat wave to celebrate his first-innings hundred at Headingley. He will happily tumble to the ground when playing a paddle sweep, a wild but methodical shot. After a life-threatening car crash in December 2022, he was given an 18-month recovery timeline. He told the doctor he wanted to do it in 12. And when Chris Woakes went full on day one, Pant opted for a reverse sweep, a shot no one else would have even considered.

Cue the ball thundering into his right boot via an inside edge, an egg rising from the foot. A golf cart wheeled him off the field and, it seemed, out of the series. Reports on Thursday morning stated a fractured metatarsal, yet India’s only update in the opening session was that Dhruv Jurel would keep wicket for the rest of the match, with Pant “available to bat as per team requirements”. Maybe he would give it a whack with one wicket left or India would have enough to let him rest until the second innings.