IND vs ENG: Rishabh Pant's Heroics Earn KL Rahul's Respect In Leeds Test

What a wonderful start the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy has gotten in the first test of the five-match Test series between India and England that started on 20 June in Leeds. England captain Ben Stokes won the toss and opted to bowl first and invited Shubman Gill's new transition-phase team to bat first. In yesterday's first Test, Shubman played his first match as a Test captain and scored a wonderful century, while vice-captain Rishabh Pant wrapped up the first day's game by scoring a brilliant half-century. India's score till stumps was 359 for 3. Gill completed his century in 140 games, and he became the fifth Indian player to score a century in Test cricket as a captain.

In the last few months, Rishabh Pant had gone through a lot of trolling for his poor form in the IPL, but then he scored a century in the last match of the IPL, and from that we all got a little hint that he is ready for the England tour. The trolling did not end here; he also got advice from some experts to play carefully, but Pant, being Pant, was busy playing his natural game, for which he is known. On the second ball of the innings, he ran on the track and hit Ben Stokes' ball over his head, but since then he has been quite careful in his shot selection.

Not only this, Pant also played a long ball from Chris Woakes on the track and then hit it over deep square leg for a six. Seeing this shot of Pant, Woakes was astonished and kept watching him, and England captain Ben Stokes also had the same reaction, and he was standing there smiling. But the thing that stole the whole limelight was when Pant returned to the dressing room after being not out for 65 runs; near the gate, Rahul folded his hands and bowed towards Pant and gave him the respect for the game that he played. It was both a compliment and a joke, as Pant refused to curb his aggressive instincts yet returned unbeaten at the end of the day.

Pant batted along with his captain in the third session, in which Gill came close to scoring a century in his first match as India's Test captain. Yashasvi Jaiswal, what a wonderful opening he gave to the team along with Rahul yesterday! This young player batted in the first two sessions and made 101 runs in 158 balls, but he could not stay for long in the third session. Jaiswal lost his wicket on that brilliant spell of Stokes, and England got success, and thus Jaiswal's innings ended. Rahul himself played an important knock as the top-order batter, but he fell short of scoring his half-century. If we talk about the debutant, then he got out on a duck in his debut match, but there is full hope from him that he will definitely show amazing performance with his batting in the next innings.