New Delhi, Aug. 25 -- The solar panel above the Sinhalese Sports Club's new stand did not survive contact with Rishabh Pant. The wicketkeeper-batter, batting on 47 at the time, launched Prabath Jayasuriya into an orbit no one in the ground had mapped, and when the ball struck the panel high on the stadium roof - a measured 95 metres from the crease - the crowd's delayed reaction said everything about what they had just witnessed. It was, in a single shot, the whole argument for Pant in four and a half seconds of flight.

a number no Indian wicketkeeper had reached before him, surpassing the mark set by MS Dhoni, the man whose name is attached to almost everything this position has produced. Pant is now, by that measure, the most prolific ...