Rishabh Pant to be airlifted to Mumbai by the BCCI for further treatment. he miss at least 18 months of cricket: Reports

Indian cricketer Rishabh Pant is said to have been moved from Dehradun’s Max Hospital to Mumbai on Wednesday as his ligament injuries needed immediate intervention. Now, as per the report in News18, the middle-order batter needs a significant amount of time to recover and that rules him out of the upcoming Border-Gavaskar Trophy, IPL 2023, ODI World Cup, the remaining matches in the World Test Championship cycle, half of next year’s World Test Championship cycle, IPL 2024 and the T20 World Cup in June next year.

Rishabh Pant has recently undergone two surgeries on his knee after his ligament was very much damaged following the accident. As per reports, the Haridwar-born cricketer will continue to be treated in Mumbai and will then move to National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru for rehab. However, since Pant is a wicket-keeper, his knee will take a lot of pressure and thus regaining full fitness will take a significant amount of time. It is to be noted that the 25-year-old sustained multiple injuries as his car hit a road divider near Roorkee in Haridwar, and he received cuts on his forehead along with injuries on his back, knee and ankle.

The Board will make every effort to aid and expedite the recovery process of Rishabh and will provide him with all the support he needs during this period,” said Jay Shah, Honorary Secretary, BCCI, in an official press release. This indeed is a massive blow to the Men in Blue as the management was considering him as a potential leader in the time to come. He has been a runaway match-winner in Test cricket for India and thus, the Rohit Sharma-led side will definitely miss him being around in the longest format of the game as well

• Rishabh Pant was involved in a car accident on December 30 morning.
• Urvashi Rautela shared a cryptic note on Instagram.
• ‘Praying’ she wrote alongside her uber glamorous picture.

Team India stand-in skipper Hardik Pandya made an honest admission about Rishabh Pant’s impact in the side after the latter injured himself in a freak car accident. Pant endured multiple injuries after his car crashed into a divider on the Delhi-Dehradun highway on December 30 and is currently admitted in Dehradun’s Max Hospital. “We need to understand that he is a keeper so his movements – regular squatting, sideways movements and all – put a lot of load on the knee. We can’t rush with it and it is going to take a lot of time,” a source close to the developments said.

On the eve of the India-Sri Lanka T20I series, Pandya shared his thoughts on his teammate’s accident. The skipper acknowledged that Pant’s absence would be felt by every member in the team. Notably, Pant suffered a fiery road accident last month after his car crashed on a highway. The wicketkeeper-batter sustained severe injuries and was admitted to Max Hospital in Dehradun before being airlifted to Mumbai for further treatment.

He had two cuts on his forehead, a ligament tear in his right knee, and also hurt his right wrist, ankle, and toe, along with abrasions on his back. He was driving the car himself, and the crash occurred around 5.30 am on Friday morning when he reportedly felt sleepy and lost control of the car. Notably, Pant was severely injured after his car crashed into a divider on the Delhi-Dehradun highway and caught fire.

The only connect with cricket for him is that he comes from a village called Ballah – loosely translated that is a bat in English. Otherwise, Sushil, a bus driver who works for the Haryana Road Transport Corporation, is not kicked up about the game and there is no way he would know who Rishabh Pant is. “We were coming in a different direction. I was returning from Haridwar and he was driving from Delhi. There is a road divider in between. We had stopped our bus at Gurukul Narsan. At that place the speed automatically comes down, we drive around.

The conductor of the bus, Paramjeet, adds, “It happened at around 5.14-15 AM, right in front of our eyes. We pulled him out and we thought he was dead. We actually kept him on the divider. I told the driver to check the vehicle if there is anyone else. By then a few passengers came out of our bus. At that stage, the vehicle exploded and we all moved away from the burning car. Soon, he became conscious and told us no one else is in the car. I asked him who he was and he told us he is an India cricketer.”

Sushil said he has no fascination for cricket but he was happy to help. “Whoever he was, we would have done what we have. He asked for water and we gave him a little. It was my duty, anyone in that place would have done what we have. No credit is due. I just performed my humanitarian “I was expecting it would crash and in just 10 seconds it rammed into the divider. It breached the divider and had three-four tumbles and then came into our side of the road. I was expecting it to crash but did not know it would come to our side. I stopped my vehicle, and saw the car in flames.”

He further continued in another tweet, “From the bottom of my heart, I also would like to thank all my fans, teammates, doctors and the physios for your kind words and encouragement. Looking forward to seeing you all on the field.”

Though a timeframe hasn’t been provided for Pant’s return to cricket, he has not been named in the squad for the first two Tests of Australia’s tour of India in February and March.