A year on since their historic triumph in Barbados in the T20 World Cup final against South Africa, India’s wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant has recalled a heartfelt message about how life gave him a second chance.“Not many know what it feels like to be chosen twice — once by life, once by death,” read one of Pant’s Instagram stories.In his first tournament back in India colours after being out for nearly 14 months due to his injury setback from a road accident, Pant had failed to light up the final with the bat, bagging a duck.But Pant was instrumental in orchestrating a stoppage in play by signalling to his injured knee when South Africa needed 26 runs in four overs with six wickets in hand.Reflecting on the incident, Pant had previously told Star Sports: “I was actually thinking what to do because the momentum had suddenly shifted (in South Africa’s favour), they had scored plenty of runs in 2-3 overs, so I was thinking when that moment would come when we would win the World Cup final.“I was asking the physio to take time. When Rohit bhai asked if my knee was fine, I said, ‘Bhaiya, bas acting kar raha tha‘ (I was acting all this while). Sometimes you have to do these types of things in matches. I’m not saying it works every time, but it does work sometimes, and if it works at that kind of moment, then nothing like it,” he added.Meanwhile, India’s title-winning captain Rohit Sharma thought that Pant was in pain.
“I genuinely thought that something had happened to him. After the accident he had, I thought he was just trying to… But actually, it was just to stop the game a little bit,” Rohit told Star Sports.
