Rishabh Pant Reportedly “Put Himself Through a Punishing Routine” After Getting Benched in Champions Trophy

Rishabh Pant was largely absent in victorious Team India's starting XI at the 2025 Champions Trophy.

Rishabh Pant Reportedly “Put Himself Through a Punishing Routine” After Getting Benched in Champions Trophy

Rishabh Pant reportedly went through a difficult self-challenging training regimen after being benched at the 2025 Champions Trophy. (via Inside Sport)

A former Team India coach recently revealed that Rishabh Pant subjected himself to a ‘punishing’ training regimen after being largely excluded from India’s 2025 Champions Trophy starting XI. Pant reportedly put himself through a tough fitness routine and practice sessions to prove his worth in the side. 

Rishabh Pant has established himself as a leading name in the Indian red-ball side, owing to his distinct batting technique and hard-hitting abilities. It recently earned him the Indian Test vice-captaincy, ahead of the ongoing England tour. Pant has enjoyed a blistering start to the series, with centuries in both the innings of the opening Test, becoming only the second wicket-keeper batter after Andy Flower to do so. 

In 44 Test matches, Pant now has an impressive 3200 runs at an average of 44.44, with eight hundreds and 15 half-centuries. However, despite his success in Test cricket, the 27-year-old appears to have lost his spot in India’s limited-overs teams over the past year.

Even as part of the victorious 2025 Champions Trophy squad, Pant was left unhappy after he failed to make it into the starting XI in any of the matches, with the team management opting for KL Rahul instead.

Rishabh Pant last featured in an ODI in July 2024, a match which India shockingly lost to Sri Lanka by a huge margin of 110 runs. Pant’s performance was subpar, as he was dismissed for only six runs. His year began similarly unimpressively, with a poor showing in the 2024-25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy, followed by a disappointing Indian Premier League season where he managed just 269 runs at an average of 24.45.

With the 27-year-old now having returned to form with a ballistic twin hundred against England despite the earlier setbacks, former Team India strength and conditioning coach Soham Desai revealed Pant’s reaction to his ICC CT snub.

He disclosed that the LSG star subjected himself to grueling daily training sessions, practicing so intensely in the nets that he had blisters in his hands. Desai noted that Rishabh Pant was effectively punishing himself through such a severe training regimen. He told Times of India:

He [Rishabh Pant] did the most intense sessions, day in and day out. He dragged me into the gym whenever he was free. He didn’t care about fatigue or workload programmes.

Desai explained that Pant frequently pulled him to the gym, showing little concern for fatigue or workload management, all in his pursuit to get back to his best. It was only on the day of the final, Desai admitted, that Pant asked if he could take a day off. Desai believes that his recent resurgence is a result of this training, and he expects Pant to continue with his high-level performances for the rest of the year:

[Rishabh] Pant has so much in reserve that he will be fine for at least a year without having to do anything extraordinary.

Nonetheless, it will be interesting to see whether India’s new Test vice-captain manages to pull off something similar, during the second Test match at Edgbaston. Given India’s vulnerable lower-middle order, Pant will have a significant role as a primary run-scorer.

Life-Saving Surgeon Deems Rishabh Pant’s Somersault Celebration “Unnecessary”

Dr. Dinshaw Pardiwala, Rishabh Pant’s surgeon, in an interview with the Telegraph, deemed the 27-year-old’s much-popular somersault celebration as ‘unnecessary’. Pardiwala was the one who treated Pant after his near-fatal car crash in 2021, that kept him out of action for more than a year. 

Rishabh Pant somersault celebration
Rishabh Pant’s surgeon labeled his somersault celebration as ‘unnecessary’. (via India Today)

Rishabh Pant’s backflip celebration gained popularity after he performed it following his 2025 IPL century against RCB, and again after his first-innings hundred against England at Leeds. While Pardiwala praised Pant for his agility and flexibility in executing the seemingly well-practiced move, he deemed it as an ‘unnecessary’ for someone who recovered from a grave injury, only two years ago. He told the Telegraph:

Rishabh [Pant] trained as a gymnast. Although he looks large, he is quite agile, and he does have a lot of flexibility… It’s a well-practised and perfected move, unnecessary though!

Meanwhile, the Mumbai-based orthopedic surgeon also opened up about the injuries that Rishabh Pant sustained after the unfortunate crash. He disclosed that Pant was really lucky to have not ruptured or injured his blood vessel, despite having suffered a high-velocity knee fracture.