South African pace great Dale Steyn has criticized India’s stand-in captain Rishabh Pant after his awkward dismissal led to India’s crushing defeat in the chase in Guwahati.
South Africa dominated India in the Guwahati Test, scoring 487 runs and then destroyed the Indian batting innings by losing 7 wickets in a short period of time. Marco Johnson played a brilliant innings with the bat and took 4 wickets.
India had 7 wickets down at lunch, with Washington Sundar and Kuldeep Yadav resisting the South African attack for most of the second session of play.
Irresponsible Rishabh Pant was dismissed after a very short stay in Guwahati
Rishabh Pant was maligned for his poor form and his irresponsible gameplay in such difficult conditions. India’s stand-in captain and one of the three most experienced batsmen in the longest format of the game, Pant came to bat when three sudden wickets had disrupted the flow of Indian runs.
At that stage, with South Africa already in the lead in the series, Pant needed to hold on and bring stability to the innings. If he had stayed at the crease for longer the scoreboard would have stood.
But Rishabh Pant compromised the innings with his unnecessarily long lever. In the over of Sai Sudarshan’s dismissal, Pant hit a six off Harmer’s ball and then was out after scoring only 7 runs off Marco Johnson’s ball, he had played only 8 balls in the innings.
Dale Steyn criticizes Rishabh Pant for poor performance
However, the left-handed batsman threw away his wicket soon after the start. Marco Johnson and the rest of the South African lineup celebrated after the fifth Indian wicket.
This type of blind out had happened before when he played for India and was out after a bad shot, when Sunil Gavaskar made the comment ‘stupid, stupid, stupid’. Pant stepped in to Marco Janssen and took a flick as the ball went back to Varenne.
With this catch, Vereen also became the fifth South African wicketkeeper to take 100 dismissals in Test cricket after Mark Boucher (553), Quinton de Kock (232), David Richardson (152) and John White (141).
Former South African fast bowler Dale Steyn also reacted to Pant’s dismissal, saying, “This is just a mind blowing shot,” Steyn wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
That’s just a mind blowing shot
– Dale Steyn (@DaleSteyn62) 24 November 2025
India continues to struggle like Eden Gardens
Rishabh Pant lasted eight balls in the innings, as India soon scored seven runs with the help of just one six. The opening partnership of 65 runs between Jaiswal and Rahul was broken by Keshav Maharaj.
After this, Simon Harmer struck twice and Marco Johnson cleaned up the entire middle order by dismissing players like Rishabh Pant, Ravindra Jadeja and Nitish Kumar Reddy. Since then, Kuldeep Yadav has played more than 100 balls in an innings.
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