Overview

• Pant’s back-to-back Test hundreds at Headingley made him the first Indian wicketkeeper to achieve that feat on the ground.
• He punctuated each century with a signature somersault celebration that his surgeon, Dr. Dinshaw Pardiwala, deems perfected but an unnecessary risk to his reconstructed knee.
• As vice-captain on the England tour, he gears up for the second Test at Edgbaston after leading India to a strong position in Leeds.
• He honoured Nishu Kumar and Rajat Kumar — the passersby who rescued him from a December 2022 crash — by gifting them scooters and inviting them to his Lucknow IPL match.
• Pardiwala emphasizes that Pant was “extremely lucky” to survive without blood-vessel damage and says the near-death experience has given the cricketer a more philosophical outlook.