Rishabh Pant dismissed in India practice match as Test future looms before Sri Lanka tour
Rishabh Pant was out attempting an aerial drive off Ramesh Mendis during India’s only practice match against a Sri Lanka Cricket XI at the NCC ground in Colombo on Saturday, with the two-Test series set to begin in Galle next Saturday. The brief innings highlighted a difficult run of form for Pant and reinforced questions about his place and role after a string of troubled months.
The spotlight on one-format internationals has centred largely on Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, who gave up Test cricket in May 2025 and had already retired from T20Is after the 2024 World T20 in Bridgetown, but Pant is a high-profile figure of his own who has completed a decade in India colours and is effectively confined to the longer format. His last ODI came in August 2024 and his last T20I a week earlier, both in Sri Lanka during Gautam Gambhir’s first series as coach, and selectors have increasingly viewed him as a Test specialist.
Pant’s appointment as Shubman Gill’s deputy for the England tour produced some of his finest recent work: twin hundreds in Leeds (the first by an Indian wicketkeeper in England), scores of 25 and 65 in Birmingham, 74 and 9 at Lord’s, and a 54 in Manchester while nursing a broken foot. Gill amassed 754 runs in that series, and Pant combined his inventive strokeplay with enough consistency to be a major presence across the five Tests.
The broken foot occurred when a reverse-sweep attempt off seamer Chris Woakes struck his own foot; the injury caused rapid swelling, ended his England tour and kept him out of the subsequent home series against the West Indies. When he returned to international duty he found his white-ball opportunities limited, leaving him largely available only for Test selection.
Pant’s first stint as Test captain, in Kolkata against South Africa in November, coincided with a poor team result: India failed to chase 124 on a difficult Eden surface, Gill retired hurt with a neck problem and Pant led the side during a 408-run defeat, India’s heaviest loss by runs. A later campaign as Lucknow Supergiants captain in the Indian Premier League saw the franchise slide into a sequence of poor results; Pant stepped down mid-tournament and was subsequently released back to Delhi Capitals after accepting a reduced contract.
Statistically, Pant remains a significant figure in Tests: in 50 matches he has scored 87 innings at an average of 43.37 with a strike-rate of 74.05, compiling eight centuries and 19 fifties, and accounting for 162 catches and 16 stumpings. Six of his eight Test centuries have been made away from home – four in England, one in Australia and one in South Africa – and he has not yet played a Test in Sri Lanka.
India’s two-Test visit to Sri Lanka begins in Galle next Saturday, with the second match scheduled at the SSC ground the following week; those fixtures will be Pant’s next international assignments in the longer format.