Will I ever play again? Rishabh Pant's surgeon recalls rehab process after accident

Rishabh Pant's surgeon, Dr Dinshaw Pardiwala recollected the rehabilitation made by the Indian wicketkeeper as he made a full recovery after being involved in a car accident. Pant was involved in the horrific incident in December 2022 while he was heading to his hometown from Delhi as his car hit a divider, leaving the wicketkeeper in a critical condition.

Pant had his right knee dislocated along with many other injuries, which saw him be out of the game for around 16 months. Speaking to the Telegraph, Pardiwala said that Pant was extremely lucky to be alive and not lose the blood flow to his right leg, given the injuries he suffered.

"To be in an accident like this, where the car actually overturns and blows up, the risk of death is extremely high," said Pardiwala

"When your knee dislocates, and all the ligaments break, there's a high possibility of the nerve or the main blood vessel also being injured. If the blood vessel gets injured, you typically have about four to six hours to restore the blood supply.

"Otherwise, there's a risk of losing your limb. The fact that his blood vessel wasn't injured despite having a severe high-velocity knee dislocation was extremely lucky," said Pardiwala.

'Am I ever going to play again?'

Pardiwala said that the first question Pant had when he came to the hospital was,

"Am I ever going to be able to play again?"

The surgeon said that Pant needed a full reconstruction of the right knee given the extent of the injuries he sustained.

"We had a lengthy discussion about the fact that these are grievous injuries – we would need to reconstruct the entire knee. Once we reconstruct the entire knee, we’re going to have to then work through a whole process of letting it heal, letting it recover, then get back the basic functions – the range, the strength and the stability," said Pardiwala.

While Pant was making progress after the surgery, Dr. Pardiwala was sceptical of his chances of making a comeback to the field. The surgeon said that he was keeping things straightforward with Pant and to take it one step at a time.

"Typically, when we reconstruct these patients they are happy just to get back to normal life. If they can walk and do some minimal amount of recreational sports, they’re happy. I said: ‘We can certainly make sure that he walks again. I’m going to try my best to make sure that we can get him back to playing again.’ We didn’t really want to offer him too much initially, but we did want to give him hope. So I said: ‘We’ll break it down into steps.’ Step one, of course, has to be the surgery."

“When we discussed it just after the surgery, the way I told him is the fact you're alive, the fact that your limbs survived – that’s two miracles down. If we get you back to competitive cricket, that’s going to be a third miracle. Let’s just hope for everything, and then take it a step at a time," said Pardiwala.

Pant's magical return to the field

Pant made his return to the cricket field in IPL 2024 and scored 446 runs in 13 matches. This earned him a call-up to India's T20 World Cup 2024 squad, which went on to win the title. Pant also made a fantastic return to the Test arena, where he became India's new vice-captain ahead of the England tour.

In the first Test, Pant became only the second wicketkeeper to score twin centuries in a single game.