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'Pant bats for one session and he can make things quite interesting'
'I did not want the pressure of having to contain and as well as take wickets'
Indian wicket-keeper batsman Rishabh Pant continued his heroics from the stunning Australian tour when he slammed a quickfire 91 against England on Sunday on Day 3 of the first Test being played in Chennai.
The stylish batter smacked five maximums and nine boundaries in his 91 while facing only 88 deliveries.
He once again played a brisk inning as he demolished the English bowling attack and made them look ordinary during his stay at the crease.
England skipper Joe Root, on Tuesday, admitted that Pant was a big factor in his side not declaring in their second innings even after the lead crossed the 400-run mark.
"We could have declared earlier, for sure, we could have. I wanted to make sure that there were only two results possible in this game. I wanted to make sure that we turned up today with the ball still being hard. We wanted to give our bowlers an extra bit of time to be raring to go. We wanted to get to 400 and then we wanted to press the accelerator. Actually, it was going to be really important that we had runs on the board as it was a fast outfield," Root said.
"Rishabh Pant bats for one session and he can make things quite interesting. I did not want the pressure of having to contain and as well as take wickets. I wanted to make sure that the bowlers were concentrating on the ways of finding the wickets on that surface. We were always going to create ten chances, we just had to be disciplined and take the chances that came our way. We could have declared earlier, I am just glad how it has turned out," he added.
England defeated India by 227 runs in the first Test at the MA Chidambaram Stadium. On day five of the first Test, James Anderson and Jack Leach stole the show for England as they took seven wickets among themselves to bundle out the hosts for 192.