Rishabh Pant

A match-turning, swashbuckling batter-keeper in the Adam Gilchrist mould, Rishabh Pant has had a starring role in most of India's biggest Test matches in his first few years in the team.

His first Test century came in his third match, on the 2018 tour of England, when he made 114 from No. 7 when up against a target of 464 that he made look almost gettable at points when he was at the crease. Early the following year he produced 159 off 189 balls in India's total of 622 in Sydney, which sealed their first series win in Australia. An encore followed early in 2021, when he made 97 off just 118 at the SCG, helping wrest a draw off Starc, Cummins, Lyon and Hazlewood when India were staring down the barrel.

Pant's finest batting hour came in the classic that followed in Brisbane: an unbeaten 89 to steer a veritable India third XI home in a tall chase, and to their second series win down under in two visits. The whitewash of England at home that followed brought another two centuries for him, and in Cape Town at the start of 2022, he made an almost ludicrous 100 off 139 in an India total where the next highest score was 29. Later that year, he set India up with a breakneck 146 in the first innings of the postponed last Test of their tour of England from 2021 - only for England to outgun them in a berserker fourth-innings chase. In the same country, four years later, Pant made two rollicking hundreds at Headingley, becoming the first Indian keeper to make two centuries in a Test.

In December 2022, Pant was seriously injured in a horrific car crash but he returned to the game 15 months later, in the 2024 IPL, leaner and more fit, his attacking fervour undiminished. He made 446 runs in that tournament, before moving to Lucknow Super Giants, where he had his poorest IPL season - which might have been poorer still but for his hundred in their last game of the season.

It is a mark of Pant's no-fear, no-brakes batting that in his first four years in the game, he had as many scores between 90 and 100 in Tests as he did hundreds. It is the only way he has known: a year after making his Ranji Trophy debut at 18 in 2015, he scored a triple-hundred against Maharashtra, followed by two blistering centuries in a game against Jharkhand a month on - one of them ending in 135 off 67 balls.

With Test stats like his, Pant's numbers in T20 - over 3000 runs in eight seasons for Delhi Capitals, at a strike rate of close to 150 - don't seem especially remarkable, but he has been a force for the Delhi side, their all-time top-scorer, and was appointed captain in 2021. He was bought at auction by the franchise the day he made a hundred in the 2016 Under-19 World Cup, which took India into the semi-finals of that tournament.

- Rishabh Pant was bought by Delhi Capitals at the 2016 IPL auction, on the same day that he scored a century to seal India's place in the Under-19 World Cup semi-final.

- An attacking left-hand wicketkeeper-batter, Pant made a name for himself with his audacious strokeplay and devil-may-care approach. His best season with the bat was in IPL 2018, when he scored 684 runs at a strike rate of 173.60.

- Pant returned to play in the IPL in 2024 after recovering from severe injuries suffered in a horrific car accident in December 2022. He was named captain of Delhi Capitals again and, back to his best, made 446 runs in another middling season for the team.

- Pant was picked up by Lucknow Super Giants for INR 27 crore ahead of the 2025 season, becoming the most expensive IPL player at the time. He had a poor debut season for LSG, scoring just 269 runs in 14 innings, with a bulk of them coming in one scintillating knock of 118* at the end of the league stage.