Rishabh Pant Comeback: From 2022 Crash to India's Test Future

There are second acts in cricket. Most are quiet — a recall after a lean trot, a switch in role, a redemption hundred that nobody sees coming. Rishabh Pant's second act is louder. It begins with a written-off car on the Roorkee highway in December 2022, runs through fourteen months of hospital beds and silent gym hours, and ends — for now — with the gloves back on, the bat swinging through the line, and a generation of Indian fans wondering if the loudest voice on the field might also be the next captain in whites.

This is the comeback story, mapped honestly. The injuries, the rehab, the Test return in 2024, the form curve through 2025-26, what it means for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2027 in Australia, and the case — and counter-case — for Pant captaining India in the post-Rohit era.

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December 30, 2022: the night that changed everything

Pant was driving home to Roorkee in the early hours of December 30, 2022, when his Mercedes hit a divider on the Delhi-Dehradun highway and caught fire. He pulled himself out through a smashed window with a broken right knee, ligament damage in both knees, a fractured ankle, a wrist injury, abrasions to the back, and burns. He was 25.

In the days that followed, the medical bulletins read like a worst-case template: surgery on the right knee for ACL and MCL reconstruction, separate surgery on ligaments in the left knee, surgery on the right ankle, and a long rehab arc that put him out of cricket for the entire 2023 calendar year — including the home Test series against Australia, the WTC Final at the Oval, the Asia Cup, and the 2023 ODI World Cup at home. For a player who had become India's defining red-ball wicketkeeper-batter, it was a catastrophic write-off of fifteen months.

But the surgeries went well. The rehab, run out of the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru, was meticulous. By March 2024, Pant was keeping wicket again in IPL training. By the end of March 2024, he was playing in the IPL for Delhi Capitals — eighteen months and one week after the crash.

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The 2024 Test return: England at home

Pant's red-ball comeback came in the home Test series against England in early 2024. He missed that series — selected only for the white-ball legs — but returned to Test cricket later in the year on India's tour of Bangladesh and the home series against New Zealand.

The numbers, on the face of it, were modest. A 39 in Chennai. A 99 in Pune (run out, of course it was Pant). A typically streaky cameo in Mumbai. But the more important read was off the scorecard: he was keeping for full innings on knees that were now reconstructed, surviving five-day fields, and looking — to anyone watching closely — like a player whose hands and instincts had not lost a beat. The body had, naturally, lost a step. The cricketer had not.

By the time the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25 in Australia came around, Pant was a regular again. He played all five Tests, kept across the series, and produced one of the bigger talking points of the tour with his work on the bouncier surfaces.

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2025-26 form: the curve flattens, then climbs

Through 2025 and into the 2025-26 home season, Pant's Test form has tracked a familiar Pant arc — uneven, occasionally maddening, periodically brilliant. The headline numbers across the home cycle and away assignments since his return read in the 30s for average, with a strike rate well above 70, but those numbers undersell two things.

The first is what he means in the lower-middle order. India's Test top order is a mix of accumulators (Rohit Sharma, Cheteshwar Pujara's old slot now filled by KL Rahul or a debutant), one ball-dominator (Yashasvi Jaiswal), and the ageless Virat Kohli. Pant is the gear-shift: when teams sit on the right-handers, he scrambles fields by sweeping spinners against the angle and reverse-ramping fast bowlers from a left-hand batter's position. The match-state value of that gear-shift does not show up in average and strike rate.

The second is the 2025-26 Sri Lanka and South Africa Tests, where Pant's contributions on day-three and day-four pitches were the ones that turned matches. He is back to being the player partnerships-of-the-year are hung from.

For a deeper look at India's wider Test build for the next 18 months, see our breakdown of Australia's tour of India in 2027 for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy and the WTC Final 2027 at Lord's schedule and qualified-team picture. Pant is central to both stories.

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BGT 2027 in India: where Pant fits

The next Border-Gavaskar Trophy is at home in early 2027, a five-Test series that will define both India's WTC qualification and the senior leadership transition. Pant's role across that series is settled at one level — first-choice wicketkeeper, No. 5 or 6 in the order, primary middle-order disruptor — and uncertain at another. The uncertainty is captaincy.

The captaincy question hinges on three sub-questions:

1. Will Rohit Sharma still be Test captain by BGT 2027? Rohit will be 39, in his last cycle. Selectors, by every signal we have, want him to lead through that series and then transition.
2. Is Jasprit Bumrah available to lead? Bumrah has captained intermittently when Rohit has been rested or injured, but workload management around a fast-bowling captain is tricky in a five-match home series.
3. Is Pant the right successor in white? That is where the comeback narrative collides with the captaincy question.

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The captaincy case for Pant

Pant has captained Delhi Capitals in the IPL since 2021 (with the 2023 IPL missed because of the accident, and partial seasons since then), and the Capitals coaching staff have been consistent on one point: he is the best tactical reader of a T20 game in their dressing room. That does not automatically translate to Test captaincy, but the underlying skills do — situational awareness, willingness to set unconventional fields, and the personality to talk to bowlers between balls.

The case for Pant as Test captain rests on four points:

• He is a guaranteed XI selection for the next four years, which solves the most basic problem in modern captaincy.
• He sees the game three overs ahead. His glove signals to bowlers, repeatedly, anticipate batting changes before they happen.
• He has authority with the senior bowlers. Bumrah, Siraj, Ashwin and Jadeja respect him. That is not automatic for a player in his late twenties.
• He carries the dressing room emotionally. Indian Test cricket has been, since Kohli, a high-emotion enterprise. Pant continues that lineage.

The counter-case is real too:

• The body. A Test captaincy is a physical commitment as much as a tactical one. Two reconstructed knees and a long history of injury are not nothing.
• The temperament. Pant is brilliant on the front foot and occasionally erratic when defending a position. Leading a fourth-innings rear-guard demands a different gear.
• The succession queue. Bumrah, Shubman Gill, KL Rahul and Hardik Pandya are all in the conversation, depending on format.

Our reading: Pant will captain India in Tests at some point in the 2027-29 cycle. Whether that is immediately after Rohit, or after a Bumrah/Gill interregnum, is the open question.

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What the numbers actually say

Across the post-comeback Test sample (mid-2024 onwards):

• Test innings: in the high 20s and climbing
• Average: low-to-mid 30s
• Strike rate: above 70 (which, for context, is among the highest in world Test cricket among regular keepers)
• Hundreds: two
• Fifties: six
• Wicketkeeping dismissals: an above-average catch-per-innings rate; stumping rate higher than his pre-accident baseline (a quirk we put down to him standing up to spinners more aggressively)

The headline read: he is back to roughly 80-85% of his pre-accident output, with the body still building. By BGT 2027 he should be at full capacity.

For context against history, see our pieces on Test cricket's highest individual scores and the most Test wickets all-time bowlers list — Pant's long-term aim is to put a 200+ score on that first list before he is done.

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The white-ball question

Pant is also India's starting Test wicketkeeper but has lost his ODI place to KL Rahul and his T20I place to Sanju Samson and Jitesh Sharma during the comeback period. The Champions Trophy 2025 was an interesting tell — Pant was in the squad but did not start every game.

For the 2027 ODI World Cup in Africa, the keeper-batter slot is up for grabs again, and Pant is in the conversation. Our view: he will be part of the squad, but not necessarily the first-choice keeper. India will rotate based on conditions.

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What to watch through to BGT 2027

Three things tell us whether the comeback has gone from successful to definitive:

1. The 2026 home Test season, including the Afghanistan Test in June (see our Afghanistan tour of India 2026 hub) and the South Africa series later in the year. Two centuries here would lock the BGT 2027 spot.

2. The 2026 IPL post-season. Pant, captaining DC, will be tested by the playoff intensity. A deep IPL run with him leading from the front is a captaincy case-builder.

3. The 2026 England tour and any away Test action in 2026-27. Conditions outside India remain the truest test of the comeback. Use the WTC India simulator tool to see how individual Test results shift India's qualification odds — a Pant-led Test series win in England, for instance, almost guarantees a Lord's 2027 Final spot.

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The bigger picture

Cricket is full of comebacks. Most are linear — a player drops out, rebuilds, returns, plays a few more years, retires. Pant's comeback is not linear. It is a multi-year arc that began with a question about whether he would walk again, ran through a question about whether he would keep wicket again, and now sits at a question about whether he will captain India.

Whatever the answer, the comeback itself — keeping wicket for five days, batting through fifth-day pressure, captaining an IPL franchise, anchoring the post-Kohli middle order — is already done. The rest is upside.

For the broader Test landscape, read our late-April 2026 ICC Test rankings analysis and the WTC 2025-27 cycle explainer. India's position in both of those is, in 2026, a Pant-shaped story.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Has Rishabh Pant fully recovered from the 2022 accident? Medically yes. Pant has resumed wicketkeeping and full-season batting since 2024 and shows no visible mobility limitation behind the stumps or running between the wickets. The recovery is now in its third year of post-rehab cricket.

Is Rishabh Pant in line to be India's next Test captain? He is one of three to four serious candidates (alongside Bumrah, Gill, and KL Rahul) when Rohit Sharma steps away from Test captaincy. Selectors have not committed publicly, but the framing inside Indian cricket is that Pant is the leading contender for the post-2027 transition.

Will Pant play the BGT 2027 series in India? Yes, barring injury. He is first-choice wicketkeeper for India in Tests and a guaranteed top-six batter against Australia at home.

How does Pant's post-comeback record compare to his pre-accident form? He is averaging roughly in the low-to-mid 30s in Tests since his return, against a pre-accident Test average in the low 40s. The strike rate is broadly similar (above 70). The fielding and keeping numbers are at his previous peak.

Did Pant captain India in any format during the comeback period? Pant has captained Delhi Capitals in the IPL across most of 2024-26 (with stretches missed because of franchise rotation and India duty). He has not yet been named full-time captain of India in any format, but has led in unofficial games and stand-in roles.

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The next chapter is about whether Pant becomes more than a great wicketkeeper-batter. The first chapter — surviving — is already done. Most cricketers never get the second act. Pant has earned his.