Even before November 1999, a host of exceptional wicketkeeper-batters had graced the international scene, not least India’s own Farokh Engineer and the wonderful Andy Flower from Zimbabwe. But from the time a left-hander from Western Australia stormed the Test firmament at the Gabba in Brisbane nearly 27 years back with a bruising 81 on debut, against a shell-shocked Pakistani outfit, wicketkeeper-batters have been looked at in an entirely different vein.

Adam Gilchrist rewrote the dynamics of Test batsmanship. He was a destructive opener in limited-overs cricket long before he played his first Test, and reeled off numerous wondrous knocks, including in the final of the 50-over 2007 World Cup when, with a squash ball for company, he bludgeoned his way to 149 against Mahela Jaywardene’s Sri Lanka in a decisive effort that took Australia to a hat-trick of titles. But it was in the red-ball game that Gilchrist set stall as a pioneer, providing not just meaningful heft to the Australian batting but scoring runs at such a furious clip that opponents were often ducking, unsuccessfully, for cover.

For the most part of his glittering career that encompassed 96 Tests, the left-hander had the luxury of batting behind a grand top six that used different methodologies to subjugate bowling attacks in all parts of the world. The sight of Gilchrist, the destroyer supreme, striding in purposefully at No. 7, was dispiriting or exhilarating, depending on which side of the fence one was. Gilchrist seldom disappointed; when he scored his runs, he did so with not just panache and chutzpah but also with a violent streak that damaged bowling figures as well as egos. How could anyone bat with such unchecked aggression at No. 7? How could someone fuse a no-holds-barred approach with such consistency (as an average of 47.60 at a strike-rate of 81.95 will unequivocally testify to)?

Gold standard

Gilchrist will remain the gold standard among wicketkeeper-batters, the platform from which the likes of Mahendra Singh Dhoni, more than anyone else, launched himself into the stratosphere. Gilchrist’s towering presence kept an entire generation – or more – of Aussie stumper-batters out of international reckoning. India, however, found a judicious balance; while Dhoni’s aggression in front of the stumps and his brilliance behind it precluded a dynamic new force breaking through, India were compelled to find a place, if only as a specialist batter, for Dinesh Karthik, the ebullient little right-hander from Chennai who was more than good enough to hold his own as a batter.

Karthik wasn’t the first Indian gloveman to play as a specialist batter. Nearly four decades before him, Budhi Kunderan donned that role, even opening the batting in England in 1967 alongside designated wicketkeeper Engineer. A couple of decades on, Chandrakant Pandit played as a middle-order bat with Kiran More slotting in as the wicketkeeper. Such was Karthik’s great natural ability – which he didn’t maximise, he will acknowledge – that in the Dhoni era, India fielded him as a full-fledged opener overseas, and with no little success. Alongside Wasim Jaffer, Karthik formed an excellent opening combine in Bangladesh and England in 2007, bringing up his only Test ton across the border and bettering that effort by emerging as India’s highest scorer in England, when they last won a Test series there by a slender 1-0 margin.

Karthik played his last eight Tests down the order, sometimes when Dhoni wasn’t available (including through retirement) and he donned the big gloves, and at others when he played alongside the Jharkhandi as a pure batter. Just one half-century in his last 14 Test innings meant he played the last of his 26 Tests in August 2018; his Test average of 25 was decidedly underwhelming, given his supreme gift as a batter, but that can happen when one is overeager and anxious to not just justify their selection but also state their case for a longer rope.

India now have a profusion of excellent wicketkeeper-batters across formats – Rishabh Pant, of course, tops that chart, especially when it comes to the red-ball variant, but there are a host of others that can’t be ignored. Among them are Sanju Samson and Ishan Kishan, exclusive when it comes to the white-ball version. And Dhruv Jurel, the 25-year-old from Agra whose first Test cap came as a wicketkeeper against England in Rajkot in February 2024 when Pant was out after his horrific road accident of 14 months previously and KS Bharat had played himself out of the XI with poor efforts in the first two Tests in Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam respectively.

The generational talent that Pant is, he kept almost exclusively from the time he made his Test debut in Nottingham in August 2018 and made a stunning 114 in his third appearance at the Oval till his single-car accident in December 2022 when India were suddenly forced to scramble for a replacement. Bharat, from Andhra, won the early nod for the home Tests against Australia in February 2023 and donned the big gloves in the final of the World Test Championship against the same opponents that June. KL Rahul was nominated the first-choice stumper for the two Tests in South Africa towards the end of the year, more to provide stability and class to the lower order in a line-up from which very few had played in South Africa previously. Bharat reclaimed his spot behind the sticks against England at home and played himself out of the XI following scores of 41, 28, 17 and 6 which meant that in seven Tests and 12 innings, he only averaged 20.09, a definite no-no given that the wicketkeeper’s was no longer a single-discipline specialised slot.

Out went the call to Jurel for the third Test in Rajkot with the series finely poised at 1-1, and it was immediately apparent that India had hit upon a gold mine. The right-hander made a poised 46 on debut, and upped the ante in the next match with scores of 90 and 39 not out, the first ensuring that India didn’t end up conceding a massive lead and the second taking them home in a tense run-chase when he and Shubman Gill put on 72 for the unfinished sixth-wicket stand.

This was in February 2024, when one wasn’t sure when Pant would be available for selection though in a characteristic show of gumption and guts, the stocky left-hander was far ahead of the timelines the doctors had tentatively outlined for a possible comeback to competitive cricket. Pant was ready for international cricket in September that year, making a remarkable recovery from a series of potentially life-threatening injuries to smash 109 on his comeback Test in Chennai against Bangladesh. Suddenly, Jurel faced an uncertain future. Despite an impressive start to his Test career, he had to bow before the irrepressible force that Pant was, though it was always on the cards that he could slot in alongside Pant, if not necessarily ahead of him.

In six of his last nine Tests, Jurel has occupied a specialist batter’s position between No. 4 and No. 8 (and that only because Akash Deep was employed as a nightwatchman at the Oval last August). On the three occasions when was the designated wicketkeeper, Pant was unavailable through injury after breaking his right foot in the Manchester Test against England in July last year. Despite the vast array of batting riches at India’s disposal, head coach Gautam Gambhir has identified in Jurel a dependable batting option, and the man from Uttar Pradesh has comprehensively justified that faith with two hundreds and a fifty in those nine Tests and 15 innings.

Jurel’s coming-of-age moment, if it can be called that, transpired in Ahmedabad last October with Pant still to recover from the broken foot. In India’s only innings against West Indies, he uncorked an excellent 125, then followed it up with 44 in the next Test in Delhi. With Pant returning to action against South Africa in November, Jurel continued on as a batter alone though like the rest of his colleagues, he had a series to forget with outings of 14, 13, 0 and 2 in a disastrous 0-2 result that has comprehensively dented India’s hopes of making a third WTC final in four cycles.

But instead of pressing the panic button and looking elsewhere, the decision-makers continued to invest their belief in him and Jurel has responded in style. Towards the end of June, he was a part of the India ‘A’ squad that travelled on the ‘shadow’ tour of Sri Lanka for two unofficial ‘Tests’, ostensibly at the insistence of Gambhir because of his felicity against the turning ball. Jurel warmed up nicely for the Test series to follow with scores of 141 not out, 14 and 53, and it was no surprise that he was picked for the first Test in Galle, when he weighed in with 51 and 7 in a winning cause.

In Colombo last week, Jurel went one better with an unbeaten 115 during which he brought his technical expertise and his mental fortitude into play. He also kept wickets for a while when Pant was recovering from a blow to his right shoulder sustained while batting, and when he went back to the outfield, took a terrific running catch from point to get rid of Lahiru Kumara in Sri Lanka’s first innings. At every stage in every role, he has looked the part, making his presence felt with total commitment and a never-say-die spirit without seeking recourse to the flashy and the flamboyant.

Jurel was chosen for Sri Lanka for his ability to play spin with finesse, and it is hard now to see him being overlooked during the November Test tour of New Zealand where the challenges for batters will be vastly different. At No. 6, behind Pant, he has the technique to tackle the second new ball if that is what he is confronted with. Ravindra Jadeja behind him in the batting order and the possible return of Washington Sundar from injury mean he is a right-handed option around a plethora of left-handers, and while that alone can’t be a qualification, he has shown that he can hold his own against bowling of any kind in any conditions.

India are fortunate that in Jurel, they have a three-in-one cricketer with his entire future ahead of him. As a batting average of 40.68 from 12 Tests proves, he is every bit deserving of the show of confidence. A place in the starting XI in Wellington in November is no more than he deserves; one can rest assured that Jurel will be short on neither preparation nor fire when ‘Play’ is called at the Basin Reserve.

India’s Dhruv Jurel celebrates his century on day two of the second Test cricket match between India and Sri Lanka, in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on August 24, 2026.
| Photo Credit: PTI

When we talk one-format India internationals in the current milieu, almost all the focus is on India’s two immediate all-format past skippers. Since May 2025, when they bid adieu to Test cricket within weeks of each other, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli play for the country only in One-Day Internationals, having already announced their retirement from T20Is at the conclusion of a triumphant World T20 campaign in Bridgetown in June 2024.

There has been so much talk about whether one, or both, or neither, will be present at next year’s 50-over World Cup in southern Africa that most other issues have been relegated to the background. Including the fact that there is another high-profile one-format-only international in recent times, a young man who has completed a decade in India colours but is now at a tenuous crossroads after an eminently forgettable last few months.

As India embarked on a journey of transition, replete with excitement and promise, last summer through a five-Test tour of England, it was expected that the future would be shaped by two of the most luminous gems in the Indian firmament. Shubman Gill’s elevation to the Test captaincy was no surprise, even though he didn’t have a great deal of leadership experience at the First Class level. Gill had time on his side, he was even then one of the top batters whose place wasn’t under threat, and he had shown himself to be a quick learner. Thrust into the role of his deputy was a once-fearless force of nature who had been forced by circumstances to temper his exuberance, both because of extraneous pressure and owing to the fact that, having established himself as one of the seniors within the setup, he had to strike a fine balance between carefree and careless batsmanship.

Rishabh Pant’s rise as the vice-captain of the Test side was welcomed with as much breathless anticipation as Gill’s to the captaincy. Or Pant’s arrival at the batting crease, if you like. With the chunky left-hander, you still don’t know what to expect. Or maybe you do, but even so, what he does simply blows your mind. Pant isn’t reckless; he isn’t someone who doesn’t not put a price on his wicket, though from time to time, ‘Stupid, stupid, stupid’ will surface because that’s just who he is. Successive coaches, from Ravi Shastri to Rahul Dravid to now Gautam Gambhir, have given him the licence to be himself with the rider that he should be a little more selective, a little more game-aware, a little more respectful of situations and conditions.

It might have been tough for Gambhir to reconcile, for instance, to Pant’s extravagant aerial drive to his fifth delivery, from off-spinner Ramesh Mendis, that nestled in long-off’s hands at the NCC ground on Saturday in India’s only practice game, against a Sri Lanka Cricket XI. Most other batters would have been happy to play themselves in, get some circulation going, get a feel of the conditions, prepare conservatively for the two-Test series beginning in Galle next Saturday. But Pant isn’t most people, and that’s precisely what makes him the compelling attraction in front of the stumps that he has been since his Test debut in August 2018.

Pant fell just two balls after attempting a similar stroke that fell just beyond the reach of the backtracking mid-off fielder, compelling Mendis and skipper Sonal Dinusha to push Nishan Madushka back. Perhaps in a show of bravado, or more likely because he backed himself to middle the ball turning away from him and comfortably clear the fielder, Pant went through with the stroke only to put the ball up in the air for Madushka to complete a smart grab. Two runs from five deliveries isn’t what Pant, or the leadership group of Gill and Gambhir would have hoped for, but as mentioned earlier, India have been willing to accept the trade-off because when Pant gets going, the destruction he can wreak is beyond parallel.

Pant’s dalliance with the vice-captaincy didn’t last too long, the decision-makers arriving at the conclusion that he and Indian cricket would be better off without additional responsibilities being thrust on his shoulders. In his first sojourn as Gill’s deputy, Pant was a runaway success. His batting in England, on admittedly excellent tracks for batting, was a sight for sore eyes. While Gill was wooing and wowing the connoisseurs with his correctness and his silken stroke-making on his way to 754 extraordinary runs, Pant was at his innovative, unpredictable best without compromising on consistency. In Leeds during the first Test, he became the first Indian stumper to notch up twin hundreds in England, backed it up with 25 and 65 in the series-levelling win in Birmingham, produced efforts of 74 and 9 in the Lord’s loss and won himself a few million more fans by coming out to bat with a broken foot in the first innings and making a stirring 54 in the fourth Test in Manchester.

On-field heroism

The manner in which he contracted that injury, and the events that followed as he took on-field heroism to a different level, are archetypal Pant. The 28-year-old attempted a reverse against seamer Chris Woakes and only managed to play the ball on to his foot, carried off the field as that part of his body swelled up dramatically within seconds of the impact. When he came out to bat, hobbling and unable to put any weight on his right foot, he still found enough timing and power to smack fours – and a six – as he brought up his fifty to raucous applause and walked off to warm appreciation and genuine respect from England’s fielders.

That broken foot not only ended his England tour but also kept him out of the home series against West Indies in October. By this time, Pant was clearly only in the running for Test matches. His last ODI was in August 2024, his last T20I a week before that, both in Sri Lanka in Gambhir’s first assignment as Dravid’s successor. Sanju Samson and Ishan Kishan in the shorter white-ball format, and K.L. Rahul and Kishan in the 50-over version, have surged well clear in the wicketkeeper-batter stakes, which means the only canvas available to Pant, apart from the IPL which hasn’t been his happiest hunting ground, is the five-day spectacle.

Pant’s return to Test cricket, against South Africa in Kolkata in November, was anything but auspicious as India failed to hunt down 124 on an Eden minefield. Gill’s batting efforts in that Test were restricted to just three deliveries in the first innings as he retired hurt with a neck injury, an affliction that kept him out of the second Test in Guwahati and thrust Pant into the Test skipper’s role for the first time.

Hard times

It was a disastrous initiation; Pant himself played one of the most horrendous strokes of his career, a little after lunch on day three, then oversaw a 408-run hammering – India’s heaviest by runs in Test history. A few months later came a campaign of gigantic failure in the IPL when, under Pant, Lucknow Supergiants hurtled from one misadventure to another. Even before the tournament had ended, Pant had stepped down as captain, and a few weeks later, it was confirmed that the IPL’s most expensive player would return to his original franchise, Delhi Capitals, after taking a heavy pay cut.

Pant had a reasonably fruitful outing in the one-off Test against Afghanistan in New Chandigarh in June, with a somewhat restrained 81 in his, and India’s, only innings of the game that they bossed all the way through. By then, though, he had been replaced as vice-captain by K.L. Rahul, one of the few individuals to have captained the country in all three formats, all in a stand-in capacity. It was the clearest indication that Agarkar’s panel, if no one else, believed that Pant himself and the team as a whole would be better off if he was divested of official leadership responsibilities, though given his standing in the international circuit, Pant can’t not be a leader in his own right.

Now, Pant can focus on his primary disciplines without having to attend lengthy team discussions or the distraction of being pulled in different directions, an inevitable fallout of additional role thrusts. Behind the stumps, he is unconventional and unorthodox, more Mahendra Singh Dhoni than Syed Kirmani or Nayan Mongia. In front of it, he is evidently in a league of his own. Like he showed on Sunday in Colombo, he can stonewall if so required – though even he will admit that he took it too far – and switch gears around his stonewalling without warning. It is exactly this unpredictability that makes him such an irascible force, a revolving door that can exasperate as much as it can exhilarate.

Impressive numbers

Despite the presence in the squad, and possibly in the playing XI, of Dhruv Jurel, there is not even an artificial threat to Pant’s presence in the Test scheme of things. After all, we are talking about someone who averages 43.37 from an even 50 Tests, at a jaw-dropping strike-rate of 74.05 embellished by eight centuries and 19 fifties in 87 innings. These are numbers that would do several specialist batters proud – remember that Mike Atherton and the recently retired Ajinkya Rahane both averaged less than 40 – and yet, there is more to Pant. Such as 162 catches and 16 stumpings, and the very rare ability to change the course of even Test matches with two hours of unadulterated mayhem.

Six of Pant’s eight centuries have come away from home – four in England, and one each in Australia and South Africa – though like most of the rest of his colleagues, he hasn’t played a Test match in Sri Lanka yet. In some ways, the conditions there will be strikingly similar to India, but in others, they won’t be, especially when it comes to pace off the surface. Galle from Saturday, and the SSC ground the week thereafter, will ask questions of Pant that he hasn’t been asked too often in the past, but knowing him, he will find the answers. How he uses those answers, however, will make for fun viewing, as much as how much and how freely he is allowed to use them. There is no point asking Pant to bat like Ravindra Jadeja because, well, he wouldn’t be Pant then, would he? India need the most potent version of Pant to come to the fore. Only a really brave or stupid individual will bet against that eventuating.

Rishabh Pant. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Rishabh Pant in action on day 2 of the one-off Test against Afghanistan in Mullanpur on June 7, 2026.
| Photo Credit: PTI

Punjab Kings skipper Shreyas Iyer in action during the Tata Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026, Twenty20 cricket match against Lucknow Super Giants at the Ekana Stadium in Lucknow on May 23, 2026.
| Photo Credit: SHASHI SHEKHAR KASHYAP

Lucknow Super Giants’ captain Rishabh Pant and Mumbai Indians’ Rohit Sharma during a the practice session ahead of their IPL 2026 match at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Sunday, May 3, 2026.
| Photo Credit: EMMANUAL YOGINI

Punjab Kings’ Cooper Connolly and Prabhsimran Singh in action.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

India’s stand-in captain Rishabh Pant at the toss before the start of the second Test cricket match between India and South Africa
| Photo Credit: PTI