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'I am a miracle man. I have managed two, I will certainly manage a third.'
Once he had survived the life-threatening accident, Rishabh Pant had no doubt he would make it to top-flight cricket again, and even if that needed a miracle, he was sure he would pull off one.
His treating doctor, renowned orthopedic surgeon Dinshaw Pardiwala, was not so optimistic, but Pant put all his worries to bed by simply describing himself as a 'miracle man'.
"When you get back to competitive cricket, it will be a miracle.. after a high-velocity knee dislocation, in this kind of a situation... But that's when he said, 'I am a miracle man. I have managed two, I will certainly manage a third'," Pardiwala recalled his conversation with the cricketer in a show documenting Pant's incredible comeback to action after 14 months on bcci.tv.
In the trailer for part one of the show Miracle Man which releases on Thursday, Pant said he is feeling 'very close to normal'.
As the swashbuckling batter gets ready to return to action in the IPL 2024 starting later this month, Dhananjay Kaushik, the physiotherapist at National Cricket Academy (NCA), spoke about the severity of the injuries the player suffered in that accident in December 2022.
"If you are talking about the right knee, none of the ligaments were spared during that accident. If you are talking about ACL (anterior cruciate ligament), PCL (posterior cruciate ligament), lateral collateral ligament ligament, medial collateral ligament...
"Also a part of the quadriceps, you name it and he didn't have it. I think if there is anyone who could make a comeback, it's just Rishabh only, with the kind of effort and attitude he has got. The way he takes things in his stride...," Kaushik said.
Pant was cleared to play in IPL 2024 as the wicketkeeper-batter by the BCCI on Tuesday. His team Delhi Capitals will open its IPL campaign against Punjab Kings in Mohali on March 23.
He met with a horrific car crash in December 2022, while driving to his home in Roorkee. He suffered multiple injuries and a ligament reconstruction surgery had to be performed on his right knee. He was also left to nurse a fractured wrist and ankle.
The 26-year-old underwent an extensive rehabilitation and recovery process at the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru following the accident.
The big-hitting player has appeared in 33 Tests, 30 ODIs and 66 T20 Internationals for India.
On Pant's journey, Nishanta Bordoloi, the strength & conditioning specialist at NCA, said it has made him more resilient and strong.
"Every incident in our life has a certain kind of outcome and I think, if not anything else, it has made him a better human being, having better understanding of life, respecting life as a whole, respecting things around, made him more resilient, more stronger," Bordoloi said.