- Tuesday, February 25, 2025
The car caught fire but a terribly injured Pant managed to survive with the help of a passerby.
By: Shubham Ghosh
DECEMBER 30 marked a year of the horrific road crash involving ace India cricketer Rishabh Pant whose speeding luxury car rammed into a divider on a highway in northern India in the wee hours. Pant was going from Delhi to his home town of Roorkee in the northern state of Uttarakhand. The car caught fire but Pant, 26, managed to survive with the help of a passerby. He, however, received serious injuries and is still recovering. He received initial treatment in Dehradun in Uttarakhand and was later flown to Mumbai.
The dashing wicket-keeper-batter has shown a steady progress in regaining his fitness and Axar Patel, his teammate in Delhi Capitals, the team he represents in the Indian Premier League, recently revealed fresh details of the “fateful” incident near Delhi.
Conceding that he felt Pant was no more, Patel said in a video uploaded by the Capitals on X showing the timeline of the diminutive cricketer’s accident and recovery on the first anniversary of the horrific incident.
“Subah 7 ya 8 baje mere phone pe ring baji. Pratima di ka phone aya. Pratima di ne mujhe pucha ki ‘teri Rishabh se kab baat hui thi last?’ Mene bola ‘nahi, kal karne wala tha lekin kal nahi ki mene’. ‘Are uski mummy ka number ho toh mereko send kar, uska accident ho gaya hai’. Matlab pehla thought mereko aaya ki ye bhai gaya (Early morning I got a call from my sister Pratima. She asked me when did I talk to Rishabh Pant last? I told her that I was about to talk to him last day but I did not. Pratima said that she needed Pant’s mother’s contact number as the player has met an accident. At the first time, I though he is gone),” Patel, a left-arm spinner all-rounder, said.
Pant, who missed the World Test Championship final and the 50-over World Cup last year, is expected to play the IPL this year. He was seen with the Capitals franchise at the auction in Dubai on December 19.
Uncapped wicketkeeper Kumar Kushagra topped the list of most expensive buys for @DelhiCapitals this #IPLAuction ?
Check out all the picks of #DC ??
— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL) December 22, 2023
Pant, who kept his fans updated about his post-accident progress on social media, has continued to work hard on his recovery. He was also seen doing commercials encouraging the Indian side during the 50-over World Cup.
The southpaw recently conceded that he is lucky to be alive.
“The kind of accident I had I am lucky to be alive. The first part of recovery was so challenging with lots of pain but now recovery is going well,” Pant said in a video posted by the IPL on X.
“More from a physical point of view because in the starting there was a lot of pain to be endured. But just looking forward to the journey till now. I think it’s been going really well from a recovery point of view.
