While recovering from the life-threatening car accident, Rishabh Pant was in a conundrum. The doctors told him how “lucky” he was but he wouldn’t be able to make sense of it. After all, he lay there covered in bandages, restricted to a bed and needed help for basic daily activities we all take for granted. Pant, though, can now piece together what the doctors meant.
“Doctors were surprised and told me that I didn’t even have a hairline fracture despite having such an accident. Yes, the knee injury was major but this could have been a lot worse. They always tell me that I’m very lucky. I wonder how I’m supposed to feel lucky as I had such an accident but the flip side is that I’m still alive,” Pant told Star Sports.
“For 30 days, I was bedridden. I couldn’t move. The friction burns were extreme and initially when I was trying to walk, I wasn’t sure whether I’d be able to resume walking/running in a normal way. I needed a lot of help in the early stages. Just to stand up, three to four people had to help me around. Since my childhood, I’m used to running around and doing my things on my own. So, this feeling was disturbing for me and I felt disrespectful to myself as to how anyone can be so helpless.”
Pant said that when he met the accident, he felt in the moment that “his time was up” and how he “gave up” for the first time in his life.
“Luckily when the accident happened, I was aware of the wounds, I was lucky as it could easily have been a lot worse than it was. I didn’t know what it was that saved me. My right leg was dislocated, I was lying down. I asked somebody for help and thanks to them, I was able to fix my leg back into the right position. If my nerve had been damaged, we would have had to amputate my leg. That was when I got really scared, because earlier, I was in so much pain that I couldn’t think of anything else.
“For the first time in life, I had given up. I felt like my time in this world was up. Never had this feeling before.”
The 26-year-old spoke about the unconditional support from his mother and how that helped him heal at a much faster rate.
“For several years, I had been driving home late. I always loved to surprise my mom. I’d reach out of nowhere and tell her ‘Mom, just open the gate, I’m here’. So she was used to me reaching late. She was obviously very upset about the incident but she wasn’t upset about me driving late as she knew it was a habit of mine. She never faulted me for it and that was very satisfying. That’s probably why people say that family understands us the best. Accidents can happen with anyone, anytime.
“I’m glad that I was driving when the accident happened and not anyone else. If that was the case, then I don’t know how I’d have reacted. At least now, I’m responsible for my mistake.”
The left-hander quietly went about the rehab process, brick by brick, taking baby steps towards his comeback. Finally, when he was ready to walk, albeit with crutches, Pant took to social media to let the world know that he was back.
“So, my first step, we luckily had a terrace and that was my first step. I posted a picture also (on social media). So many people sent their love and blessings, and I’m really grateful to them. It was very helpful. So, I wanted to give them an update that I’m feeling slightly better.
“I was focusing solely on my recovery process. Cut off myself from the world and I felt that at such a time, it helps me to recover faster. Because you’ve to do the same things day in and day out. it is a boring process. It’s irritating, it’s frustrating but you have to do it.
“Till the time I resume playing cricket, I don’t want to plan too much for the future. I never dwell in the past, I want to stay in the present and do the best I can, which is to focus on my knee.”
From being one of India’s potential game-changers for the upcoming ODI World Cup at home to not knowing when he’d be able to pick up his bat again, the quick turnaround of events was hard to take for Pant. And not being able to participate in the cricket in the middle, even harder.
When the 2023 IPL season arrived, Pant was forced to watch from the sidelines. Apart from being the regular captain, the wicket-keeper batter’s impact with the willow was something the franchise missed sorely during the tournament. He did attend the odd game from the venue and those events grabbed eyeballs on television. Pant, though, explains the frustrations that he went through, having had to be a mere spectator to his side’s displays. The mental struggles even took him to a point when he had to cut down on watching cricket.
“I tried not to watch cricket a lot. I realised that what the coaches say is true, that it is tough to just watch from the outside. Because the IPL was on, Delhi was playing and I wasn’t feeling good. I felt we could have done a lot of things differently. I wanted to discuss things with them but then I realised that I’m outside the team. When you’re inside the team, things are different. You can control a lot of things. Sitting from outside, it’s easy to make comments but the captain and coach will be having their own ideas. So it will only cause miscommunication if I also give my opinions.