Kolkata: The flamboyant Rishabh Pant on Monday acknowledged the influence and guidance of Ashish Nehra after he survived his horrific car accident, saying the former India seamer’s advice to “stay happy” stood the keeper-batter in good stead during a difficult phase.
Pant met with the accident on the Delhi-Dehradun highway on the night of December 30, 2022. His car caught fire but he made a lucky escape even though his injuries were quite severe and needed multiple surgeries. “I think one advice which really helped me was from Ashish Nehra,” Pant recalled in a freewheeling chat during CII Eastern Region’s interactive session - ‘India@100: Leadership Insight from the Sports Economy’ here.
“He is a senior from my club also. He just came to me, saw me, and he told me, ‘I had lots of injuries. Just one thing if you can do is keep yourself happy. Do things that makes you feel happy. And keep following that’.
“I think that advice really stood with me and helped me to go through my injury,” the 27-year-old Pant added.
After a year of intense recovery and rehab, he returned to professional cricket during the Indian Premier League last year and made his international return in the T20 World Cup in the Americas.
For someone who preferred doing everything by himself, losing control over his own body was the most difficult thing to digest. “I’ve been playing cricket day in and day out since I was a kid. And just seeing me so immobile in my life -- that was the hardest part,” he said. “So even a small thing, brushing my own teeth, was harder for my life. I just couldn’t do it for the first one month at least.” It was at that moment Pant realised that he needed to surrender to the process. “I have to accept that I can’t move on from this in a day or two. That is where I calmed myself down and realised that there is no point being negative.”