Rishabh Pant’s Counter-Attacking Genius: Why Bowling Units Fear Him in Fourth-Innings Chases

There are some batters a bowling team wants to keep at the crease because they know what is coming.

Then there is Rishabh Pant.

With Pant, the problem is not just trying to get him out. It is trying to work out what he might do before the next ball is even bowled.

That unpredictability has become one of the defining features of his Test batting. He can defend for a few deliveries, suddenly walk down the pitch, hit a spinner over his head, reverse the pressure with a sweep or drive a fast bowler through the covers. And when a Test reaches its final innings, with a target on the board and the fielding side expecting batters to play cautiously, Pant’s natural instinct is often to go in the other direction.

That is what makes him such a dangerous fourth-innings batter.

His record backs up the reputation. In the fourth innings of Tests, Pant had scored 436 runs at an average of 54.50 across 10 innings by the end of 2024, with a strike rate of 76.22. Among Indian batters with at least 400 fourth-innings runs, only Sunil Gavaskar and Vijay Manjrekar had better averages at that stage. His away fourth-innings average was even more impressive at 71.40.

And this is not a player who suddenly discovered counter-attacking cricket in the last few years.

Pant has been doing it since the beginning of his Test career.

His first Test hundred came in a fourth-innings chase at The Oval in 2018. Then came the famous 97 at Sydney in 2021 and the unbeaten 89 at the Gabba, where India chased down Australia’s target to win the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.

That history explains why opposition bowling attacks are never completely comfortable when Pant walks out with a target still to be chased.

Pant changes the question for the bowling team

Normally, when a team is defending a fourth-innings total, the bowlers want the batting side to make the first move.

They bowl a good length.

They build pressure.

They wait for a mistake.

Pant has a habit of refusing to play that game.

He understands that the bowling side is already carrying pressure. They know the target. They know the pitch is getting older. They know every boundary reduces the number of runs they have to defend.

Pant uses that pressure against them.

A spinner who expects a batter to defend suddenly sees Pant coming down the track.

A fast bowler who thinks a good-length delivery will tie him down can suddenly watch the ball disappear through cover.

The field changes.

The captain moves a fielder.

The bowler changes his line.

And Pant has already gained something valuable: he has made the opposition react to him.

That is the essence of counter-attacking Test batting.

The fourth innings brings out something different in Pant

Pant’s overall Test record is already impressive.

He has now played 51 Tests, scoring 3,662 runs at an average of 43.60, with eight centuries and 20 fifties. His strike rate is 74.22, which is remarkably high for a Test batter with that amount of cricket behind him.

But the fourth innings has always seemed to bring out an extra level of intent.

There is a simple reason.

Pant knows that time is often not on his side.

If India need 250 with two days remaining, he can take his time.

If India need 150 on the final day with five wickets down, the calculation changes.

At that point, the opposition is expecting pressure to make the batter defensive.

Pant often turns that logic around.

He asks the bowlers a different question:

What happens if I attack you before you can settle?

That is why his fourth-innings record is so unusual.

The Gabba innings remains the perfect example

The unbeaten 89 at the Gabba in 2021 is probably the clearest example of Pant’s fourth-innings mentality.

India needed 328 to win.

The pitch was not a road.

Australia had one of the strongest bowling attacks in the world.

Nathan Lyon was operating on a surface where the ball could turn, while Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood were constantly asking questions outside the off stump.

India still needed 161 runs when Pant came into the game.

Most batters in that situation would be thinking about survival first.

Pant was thinking about scoring.

He drove Cummins and Hazlewood. He attacked Lyon with cuts and sweeps. He came down the pitch when the opportunity presented itself.

And eventually, India chased the target with three wickets remaining.

That innings was not simply about playing aggressively.

Pant understood that Australia were waiting for India to become defensive.

Instead, he made them defensive.

That is the difference.

His Oval hundred set the pattern

The Gabba was not an isolated moment.

Pant’s first Test century came in his debut series in England in 2018.

India were chasing 464 at The Oval, and Pant scored 114.

India did not win the match, but the innings immediately showed what kind of Test batter India had on their hands. The BCCI itself lists that fourth-innings century as one of the defining moments of Pant’s early Test career.

A young wicketkeeper walking into a massive fourth-innings chase in England and scoring a hundred was enough to make people take notice.

The important thing was not just the score.

It was the willingness to take the game on.

That has remained part of Pant’s Test identity ever since.

Sydney 2021 showed the other side of his game

The unbeaten 89 at Brisbane gets most of the attention, but Pant’s 97 at Sydney was arguably just as important in showing how he handles fourth-innings pressure.

India were chasing 407.

The match was already moving towards an Australian victory when Pant began changing the mood.

He attacked the bowling, scored quickly and put India in a position where the impossible suddenly looked possible.

India eventually drew the match rather than winning it, but Pant’s approach forced Australia to reconsider their plans.

That is another part of his value.

He does not always need to finish the chase.

Sometimes he only needs to make the opposition believe that the chase is still alive.

Once that happens, the fielding captain has a problem.

Why his left-handedness makes the attack even more difficult

Pant’s left-handed batting adds another layer to the problem.

Bowlers and captains spend enormous amounts of time planning matchups.

A right-arm off-spinner may want to attack a right-hander one way and a left-hander another.

A fast bowler may change his angle around the wicket.

The field changes accordingly.

Pant can disrupt all of that.

He is not particularly interested in staying still.

He moves around the crease.

He changes his position.

He uses his feet.

He sweeps.

He cuts.

He drives.

He can hit the same bowler into completely different areas of the field.

That makes it harder for the captain to settle on one field.

And once the field changes, Pant has already achieved something.

He has created uncertainty.

He does not need a bad ball to score

This is perhaps the most frustrating part for a bowler.

Against many Test batters, the formula is straightforward.

Bowl well.

Wait.

Eventually they make a mistake.

Pant can punish a ball that is not necessarily bad.

That does not mean he hits every good delivery.

He doesn’t.

But his scoring range means that a bowler’s margin for error becomes very small.

A spinner who gives him a little too much flight can be attacked.

A fast bowler who drifts slightly onto his pads can disappear behind square.

A ball outside off stump can be cut if the width is there.

And if the bowler responds by going defensive, Pant is happy to take singles and twos.

That is how pressure moves from the batter to the bowler.

His 100th Test six is another piece of the puzzle

Pant’s latest Test milestone only reinforces the point.

During India’s first Test against Sri Lanka in Galle in August 2026, he became the first Indian batter to hit 100 sixes in Test cricket.

He reached the landmark in his 51st Test, becoming the fastest batter to the milestone in terms of matches and reaching it in only 4,918 balls, ahead of Adam Gilchrist’s previous mark of 6,578 balls.

He is now only the fourth batter in Test history to reach 100 sixes, joining Ben Stokes, Brendon McCullum and Gilchrist.

There is a temptation to treat this as a fun statistic.

It is actually a useful way of understanding Pant’s batting.

He is not simply a batter who occasionally hits a big six.

He has built a Test career around putting pressure back on the bowler.

And yet, Pant’s latest Galle innings also showed the risk

There is another side to the story, and it is important if we are going to properly understand Pant’s batting.

In the first innings of the Galle Test, Pant scored 39 before falling to debutant Keshara Nuwantha. He was dismissed soon after Sri Lanka took the second new ball, attempting an aggressive shot.

Former India batter Mohammad Kaif criticised Pant’s shot selection and argued that he needed to recognise the match situation rather than attack immediately.

That criticism is fair.

Pant’s aggression is his greatest weapon.

It can also be his biggest weakness.

There is a difference between counter-attacking and simply attacking.

The best version of Pant understands that difference.

That is why his second innings in Galle mattered

A few days later, Pant gave us another reminder of what makes him so dangerous.

In India’s second innings, he scored 66 from just 69 balls and brought up his half-century in 53 balls. It was exactly the kind of innings India needed while building a fourth-innings target for Sri Lanka.

His 66 was not technically a fourth-innings chase because India were batting in the third innings of the match.

That distinction matters.

But the mindset was similar.

India wanted to move quickly.

They wanted to turn a good position into a winning one.

Pant accelerated the scoring and helped India set Sri Lanka 372 to win.

That is Pant’s value beyond the traditional fourth-innings statistics.

He can influence the match before the final innings even begins.

Counter-attacking does not mean reckless

This is where Pant’s batting is sometimes misunderstood.

People see the big shots and assume the plan is simply to attack everything.

It isn’t.

At his best, Pant is reading the game.

If a bowler is bowling well, he can wait.

If the field is attacking, he can rotate the strike.

If the spinner drops short, he attacks.

If the fast bowler offers width, he takes it.

If the captain puts the boundary riders back, Pant takes the singles.

The aggression is not random.

It is a way of changing the terms of the contest.

That is why his best innings feel controlled despite looking outrageous.

Bowling captains hate losing control of the field

Imagine being a captain defending 180 on the final day.

You want the batters to see a ring of close catchers.

You want them to feel that every defensive mistake could end the match.

Then Pant arrives.

He hits one over mid-on.

Next ball, he takes a single.

The spinner changes his line.

Pant sweeps.

The captain moves a fielder.

Pant nudges one into the gap.

Suddenly there are fewer catchers around the bat.

The pressure has changed.

The captain is no longer setting the field based on the bowler’s plan.

He is setting it based on Pant’s next shot.

That is a huge psychological advantage.

He has already broken some of the biggest bowling attacks

Pant’s fourth-innings reputation was not built against weak attacks.

His memorable knocks have come against some of the strongest teams in Test cricket.

England.

Australia.

New Zealand.

South Africa.

He has repeatedly shown that his approach can work against high-quality bowling.

That is important because counter-attacking only becomes a genuine weapon when it works against bowlers who know how to defend their lines.

Pant has spent years proving that it can.

The overseas numbers are particularly interesting

Pant’s fourth-innings record outside India has always been one of the strongest parts of his profile.

By late 2024, he was averaging 71.40 in fourth-innings chases away from home, with 357 runs in that situation. Among players with at least 300 fourth-innings runs away from home, only Sunil Gavaskar‘s 72.21 average was higher.

That tells us something important.

Pant’s aggression is not simply a product of Indian pitches.

He has produced his best fourth-innings work in difficult overseas environments.

The Oval.

Sydney.

Brisbane.

Those are not places where a batter gets everything for free.

Why the opposition cannot simply bowl defensively

The obvious solution would seem to be simple:

Don’t give Pant anything to attack.

Bowl outside off.

Set a deep field.

Make him take singles.

But that creates another problem.

If you bowl too defensively, you stop creating wicket-taking opportunities.

Pant is perfectly capable of taking singles and twos until the field changes.

And once the field changes, he can find the boundary again.

This is the trap.

Attack him and you risk giving him scoring opportunities.

Defend against him and you reduce your own chances of taking his wicket.

That is why bowling to Pant requires more than a standard plan.

Spinners have an especially difficult job

Pant’s ability against spin is one of the main reasons he can become so dangerous in the final innings.

He is comfortable using his feet.

He can sweep.

He can reverse-sweep.

He can attack over the top.

And he is not afraid to change the angle from which he plays the ball.

A spinner’s natural advantage in the fourth innings is supposed to come from a deteriorating pitch.

The ball may grip.

It may bounce differently.

There may be rough outside the right-hander’s off stump.

Pant’s response is often to take the spinner out of the equation before the pitch becomes the dominant factor.

He does not necessarily want to sit back and allow the surface to dictate the contest.

Fast bowlers face a different problem

Against pace, Pant’s counterattack looks different.

He likes using his hands.

He can drive.

He can pull.

He can guide the ball behind square.

And because he scores at a much quicker rate than most Test wicketkeepers, a few boundaries can dramatically change the required rate.

A bowler who has been asked to defend 120 runs suddenly finds that only 80 remain.

The captain starts thinking about fields.

The bowler starts thinking about execution.

Pant is thinking about the next scoring opportunity.

Again, the pressure has moved.

The mental battle is where Pant may be most dangerous

This is perhaps the most important point.

Pant does not just challenge a bowler technically.

He challenges the bowler mentally.

A bowler knows Pant can hit him.

Pant knows the bowler knows that.

That creates hesitation.

Should the bowler attack the stumps?

Should he go wider?

Should he bounce him?

Should he bring the field up?

Should he protect the boundary?

Should he bowl spin?

Every decision has a consequence.

Pant’s job is to make the bowler think about those consequences.

That is what elite counter-attack looks like.

His style also gives India something other batters cannot

Test chases are not always won by scoring quickly.

Sometimes you need a batter to absorb pressure for 30 overs.

But there are also moments when the game is drifting away.

The required run rate starts climbing.

The bowlers are settling.

The field is aggressive.

The match needs something to change.

That is where Pant becomes incredibly valuable.

India do not necessarily need him to score 100.

They might need 50 from 60 balls.

Or 40 from 35.

Or 80 from 100.

His ability to change the tempo means India can recover from situations where a conventional approach might leave them too far behind.

His value goes beyond the scorecard

There is a reason Pant is often described as India’s “crisis man.”

The BCCI’s own profile highlights his ability to produce important innings in difficult situations, including the 89* at Brisbane and 100* in Cape Town.

That description fits because Pant’s value cannot always be measured by whether India win the match.

Sometimes his innings changes what the opposition thinks is possible.

That alone can influence the rest of the game.

A bowler who believes the target is safe behaves differently from one who thinks the game is slipping away.

Pant has made many bowling attacks feel the second situation.

The 2026 version of Pant is still evolving

There is another interesting aspect to his current phase.

Pant has returned from a serious injury and is now playing Test cricket with several years of experience behind him.

He is no longer the 21-year-old who walked into The Oval.

He is now an established Test batter with more than 3,600 runs and 100 Test sixes.

He has also experienced failure.

He has been criticised for his shot selection.

He has played innings where his aggression cost India.

That experience matters.

The next step in his development is not becoming more aggressive.

It is becoming better at deciding when aggression is worth the risk.

That is a much harder skill.

Can Pant become even better at fourth-innings chases?

Absolutely.

The foundation is already there.

His fourth-innings average has been excellent.

His overseas record has been exceptional.

He has won a Test in the fourth innings at the Gabba.

He has produced match-changing performances at Sydney and The Oval.

And he continues to score at a rate that puts pressure on bowling attacks.

The one thing that can make him even more dangerous is improved game awareness.

When to attack.

When to wait.

When to take the single.

When to leave the ball.

When the match situation demands patience rather than instinct.

If Pant gets that balance right consistently, his fourth-innings reputation could become even greater.

Why India are lucky to have him

Every Test side wants a batter who can change a game.

India have one who can do it from the wicketkeeper’s position.

That matters because Pant gives the team flexibility.

India can play five specialist bowlers knowing their wicketkeeper can score like a top-order batter.

They can declare earlier because they know Pant can accelerate.

They can chase a large target with more confidence because he has already done it before.

And they can change the momentum of a Test in a session.

Those are not small advantages.

Final verdict

Rishabh Pant‘s reputation as a fourth-innings match-winner is not based on one famous knock.

It has been built over years.

The 114 at The Oval.

The 97 at Sydney.

The unbeaten 89 at Brisbane.

The numerous fourth-innings cameos where he has taken a difficult chase and made it look possible.

His fourth-innings numbers back up the eye test too. A 54.50 average in fourth-innings chases, a 76.22 strike rate in the situation and an even better overseas average show that his aggressive approach has produced genuine results.

Then there is the latest reminder of what makes him different.

In Galle, Pant became the first Indian batter to reach 100 Test sixes, doing so faster than anyone else in Test history in terms of balls faced.

But the most interesting part of Pant’s game is not the sixes.

It is the pressure behind them.

A bowling attack defending a fourth-innings target wants control.

Pant’s entire approach is designed to take that control away.

That is why bowlers fear him.

Not because every aggressive shot comes off.

Not because he cannot be dismissed.

But because when Rishabh Pant is at the crease, the game can change in five balls.

And in a fourth-innings chase, five balls can be enough to turn a comfortable defence into a very uncomfortable afternoon.