Where Pant dared, England dominated: A tale of two halves at Old Trafford

What must Rishabh Pant be feeling?  The foot is surely throbbing — fractured, swollen, numbed by painkillers. But somewhere beyond the injury, the adrenalin must still be coursing. He returned to bat when he didn’t need to, scored a half-century when most would have sat out and in doing so, gave India not just runs, but defiance.

A counterattacking 54, stitched through grit and guile, lit up Old Trafford’s grey Thursday morning. He pulled Archer for six. Caressed Stokes through cover. Limped between the wickets, but stood tall at the crease. His return wasn’t just courageous — it was clarifying. For a brief window, the game felt like it belonged to him.

For Indian fans, it was more than a cameo. Pant has long occupied that rare space in public imagination as the free-spirited warrior who turns matches with instinct and irreverence. He became a hero in 2021 at the Gabba, sealing a historic win over Australia with a fearless 89 not out. Then came the car crash in 2022, a brush with death, months of silence and the long road back. On Thursday, limping through Old Trafford and still carving boundaries, he wasn’t just a cricketer, he was living proof of recovery, resilience and rebellion.

India’s innings, patched together around that moment of resistance, ended on 358. Then came England. By stumps on Day Two, their openers had wiped out most of the deficit with a century stand that felt inevitable. Not just for the runs, but for the rhythm — the sense of ease, ownership and inherited comfort. Duckett batted with flair, Crawley with poise. Together, they looked like men who had played this script before.

Because at Old Trafford, the ground itself remembers. Like Lord’s, it is more than a venue. It is a monument to Englishness, where the past performs alongside the present. The stands may be newer, the cameras sharper, but the pitch still whispers the old code: this is home turf.

For visiting teams, it rarely feels neutral. The light shifts. The ball behaves. The narrative bends. Indian bowlers know this all too well. Bumrah pounded in. Thakur searched for angles. But the lines wavered, the lengths strayed, and the ball softened. A century opening stand was the result, not shocking, but scripted.

Pant’s innings had briefly bent that script. When he hobbled out, heavily strapped, it felt like a man walking into memory with intent to rewrite it. His half-century wasn’t just valuable on the scoreboard. It rallied India’s lower order, extended their innings, and reminded the opposition, and perhaps his own dressing room, that character still matters.

What made it more striking was the timing. Less than 24 hours earlier, he had been driven off the field with a suspected fracture. On Thursday, he held the bat like a torch. And for a while, it lit up the gloom.

Yet by afternoon, the light belonged to England. Their dominance was familiar, not gloating, not aggressive, just assured. They batted like they belonged. That, perhaps, is the real inheritance of empire: not wealth or power, but comfort. The quiet, unstated confidence that this field is yours.

India, despite decades of victories and the world’s most lucrative cricket economy, still plays abroad with a trace of hesitancy. Every drop, every overthrow, every review carries more weight. Pant’s innings temporarily lifted that burden. But as Duckett unfurled his cuts and Crawley cruised past fifty, the mood shifted again.

Today brings new light, new plans, perhaps new heroes. But as Day Two closed, the skies above Manchester were clear and the scoreboard unforgiving. England, once again, were ascendant on home soil. And somewhere in the script, the old lines had return

(The writer is the London correspondent for The Tribune)