India's wicket-keeper Rishabh Pant struck a belligerent century on Day 2 of the opening Headingley Test at Leeds on Saturday.
Pant completed his century in grand style, coming down the track and swinging Bashir over midwicket for a one-handed six, bringing up his seventh Test hundred, from 146 balls.
Playing his 44th Test, Pant turned on the style to help India add to their already imposing first-innings total against England on day two of the first Test at Headingley on Saturday, before a late flurry of wickets saw the tourists dismissed for 471.
Pant now has three Test centuries on English soil. This is his 5th Test ton overseas and 3rd against England.
Pant now 3 Test tons in England, 1 in South Africa, 1 in Australia and 2 in India.
This is the third instance of Pant reaching a Test century with a six -- all three off English spinners (Adil Rashid, Joe Root, & Shoaib Bashir). For India, only Sachin Tendulkar has done it more often (six times), while Rohit Sharma also did it thrice.
No other visiting wicketkeeper has scored more than one century in England.
The 27-year-old now has more Test hundreds by an Indian wicket-keeper, bettering Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who scored 6 tons in 90 Tests.
Dhoni had scored 4,876 runs with six tons and 33 fifties at an average of 38.09 and remains the highest run-scorer as an Indian wicketkeeper-batter in Tests.
Pant, who completed 3,000 runs during this innings of 134 off 178 balls (12x4; 6x6), also has 15 fifties in 44 Tests and averages nearly 44.
The third in this list is Wriddhiman Saha with two centuries, followed by Syed Kirmani and Farokh Engineer with two each.
Nayan Mongia has also scored one century.
Pant levelled former Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly's record for the joint third-most Test centuries in England (three each). The highest number of centuries by an Indian in England is by Rahul Dravid (6), followed by Sachin Tendulkar (4) and Dilip Vengasarkar (4).
Pant now has more hundreds in England than Sunil Gavaskar and Virat Kohli (Kohli and Gavaskar have 2 each in England), as many as Virender Sehwag and Cheteshwar Pujara in South Africa (both have 1 century each), and the same number of tons (1) in Australia as Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid.
Pant also equalled Sri Lankan legend Kumar Sangakkara (seven centuries) for most centuries in Tests by an Asian wicket-keeper..
Pant swept and scooped and often ended up on his knees, but fittingly moving to his seventh Test ton with another six into the crowd, celebrated with a forward somersault.
Pant eventually fell, trapped leg before wicket by Josh Tongue for 134, before England captain Ben Stokes struck again from the final ball before lunch, removing Shardul Thakur -- who managed just one run -- to give home supporters renewed hope ahead of the afternoon session.
Tongue wrapped up the tail post lunch to finish with figures of 4 for 86.
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