Why it is hard to bat with a broken foot

It was another brilliant day of cricket’s mad prince.

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Rishabh Pant can make batting look incredibly hard. His ability to find shapes for his body to get into that confound the rest of the cricket world also sometimes makes it impossible to do what he wants, which is just smack the ever-loving shit out of the ball. Pant is almost too flexible. His childhood gymnastics force him into the splits when simply standing on two feet might work better.

He's part batter, part tumbler.

He has had a very unusual injury history over the last few years. And no, I'm not referring to his hamstring strain of 2020 in the IPL. That would've affected his keeping and his running between the wickets. But had he actually stood in the middle, he would've been able to bat.

In 2021, he briefly had an elbow injury as well, and we've seen players like Sachin Tendulkar, Kane Williamson and Steve Smith really struggle with this. There was actually a thought that the Kiwi might have to retire because of it, but it wasn't as much of an issue for Pant.

The really important one, of course - and we're burying the lede a little bit here - was the car accident. That ruined his knee and almost ended his entire career. There's also a mental injury here. This was not a simple thing for him to overcome, but he did, and then it was back to his knee.

You can bat with an injured knee. The bigger issue is running between the wickets. But bad knees can change your bat path. Instead of coming down straight, the blade comes across the ball. Players in Test cricket quite often start nicking off in a way that they didn't earlier in their careers. And for T20 guys, there's a lot of top edges that go straight up in the air.

In the last Test, it was a finger. It was either broken, bruised, or he lost his fingernail. It might have actually been a combination of all three. A finger injury is tricky, but many batters carry broken digits into Tests. In fact, Damien Martyn won a World Cup in 2003 with them.

But every batter is different, because some can't grip the bat at all, while others barely notice. Pant is a keeper, so I would assume he has really sore fingers every single day of his life.

And then you get the broken foot. I wonder how much it would actually change Hashim Amla’s batting. He was so still and balanced that maybe he would feel the odd twinge, but Pant is not balanced. In fact, he's almost gloriously off-kilter - like Salvador Dali's clock or a gyroscope.

But Pant doesn't just need his feet for normal cricket shots. He also uses them to charge down the track like an absolute maniac. Let's be honest, feet are important to all batters. But they are especially crucial for Rishabh Pant.

So watching him come out to bat with a broken metatarsal in a Test was almost as wild as some of the shots he plays.

It was another brilliant day of cricket’s mad prince.

Lawrence Rowe was elegance. In the 1970s, he would whistle tunes to himself between balls, barely move that famous Gray-Nicolls Scoop down straight, only to make polite suggestions to the ball which would then race off to the square boundary. He was the first man to score twin hundreds on Test debut (only Pakistan’s Yasir Hameed - against Bangladesh - has done it since), piling up 314 runs in that game. In fact, one of those was a double ton. Scoring a 200 and a 100 on Test debut is a record that still stands.

But then, sadly, it all came unraveling. A misdiagnosed knee injury stole his footwork and altered his bat path. Instead of dancing to spinners, he hobbled. Then the headaches started. Playing county cricket, Rowe was found to be allergic to grass. Grass. Of all the kryptonites, this must be the worst for any cricketer.

He also couldn't really see. A growth in his eye had blurred his vision, and glasses made things look more like a Picasso painting. Contacts were of no help to him either. In under two years, the man who was averaging 70 in Tests was now going at 32 in first-class cricket.

By the end, he was broken. Michael Holding remembers Rowe refusing to bat on a damp pitch in a charity game because he could not be the Lawrence Rowe that people were expecting.

He went from being compared to Sobers and Bradman to exiling himself in the US after taking Apartheid money to play in South Africa. Tony Cozier once said that there was no one better than Rowe, but he also said that the fear of failure gripped him. And that might be all that's left. A whisper of greatness - lost behind allergies, injury, and an eye that just couldn't see the ball.

Of all the players who've been afflicted by injuries, perhaps no one has a more tragic story than him.

But the Michaels - Clarke and Atherton - became human piñatas towards the end of their careers due to back injuries. Being bent over the blade for incredible amounts of time can stiffen up that part of the body. Against fast bowling, it stops you from being able to move right, meaning you're essentially just in the way.

Another Michael, Vaughan, had a knee injury. It meant that by the end of his career, he just couldn't bring his bat down straight. And instead of edging, he just missed a lot. In fact, Michael Vaughan getting bowled became an early meme before we even really had cricket memes.

Martin Crowe had a similar issue with his knees. What should have been his golden years - when his youthful arrogance met his technical mastery - ended with him kind of out of the game.

Fellow Kiwi Ross Taylor played through eye issues in his career, some of which he didn't even realize had affected him that badly until after he retired. They essentially meant that he was unable to pick up the ball in cloudy conditions or under lights.

The phrase "his eye is gone" is one of the most used in cricket. When a batter is no longer making runs that they once did, we just say they can't see it. It's probably never quite that simple, but some players suddenly struggle to pick up the ball late in their career.

In fact, some batters are so worried that they won't even go and see an optometrist because a bad diagnosis can mean you might be done.

So obviously, the eyes are the worst, but the feet - and legs - aren’t far behind. To get your head into the right position, you really need to move into the ball.

The old forward press isn't really used as much now as it once was, but the hovering front foot - where you don't quite fully plant it, but keep it ready to move - is modern cricket's go-to technique. And for that, you put even more pressure on your foot as you push back violently.

And Pant's foot was not even hovering. It was barely hanging on. He couldn't use it for much of anything, including many painful and horrible-looking runs. Washington Sundar might want to get the ice for his friend after the several times he tried to see how fast he could make a man with a broken metatarsal hurriedly hobble towards the other crease.

Now whether this is just another one-off injury or something that changes anything, we don't know. Batting can be weird, but Rishabh Pant can be weirder. What we do know is how it changed the ground today.

It was an incredible moment to be here. When Pant came down those stairs, I've never seen as many members of the press move to the front of the box just to watch a man walk.

Cricket has a history of moments where batters have come out to bat with something broken. Sometimes not much is made of it - like the many players with busted fingers. Or when Kevin Pietersen batted with a broken toe all the way through the 2013 Ashes.

And sometimes, it seems to change the reputation of a player.

Malcolm Marshall's one-handed swings were some of the most dramatic moments in cricket in that era. Graeme Smith basically made Mark Nicholas cry on commentary when he came out with his broken hand. Rick McCosker is mostly known in Australia for batting with a shattered jaw, and Anil Kumble also bowled with the same. Not to mention that Ellyse Perry took it one step further by bowling with a fractured leg.

England's Ian Bell even came out to bat in a moon boot with a broken metatarsal against Bangladesh. He was out in the middle for three minutes, though, and didn't face a ball as poor Jonathan Trott missed out on the win in the final over.

There just is something special about the players willing to stand in front of a small projectile being fired at them while already being broken. Facing a ball at that speed is like getting a brick fired by a shotgun at you. It can be tough on your best day. But when you are already hurt and not moving how you should be, it can be terrifying.

So Rishabh Pant has hobbled into history here. He swung wildly, hit the worst shot off a full toss you'll ever see, blocked a ball through cover for four past a sweeper, and smashed one for six that almost went all the way to Leeds. Eventually, he lost his off stump to an absolute ripper, only for him to limp back off the field up the suspiciously large number of stairs to the Indian changing room.

Because of his car accident and just the random way he plays, he's already made this incredible legacy for himself. But limping out onto Old Trafford is now part of it.

Rishabh Pant hit Jofra Archer for six with a broken foot, because of course he did. Only he can reach this level of wow, madness and respect in one moment. Nothing can shatter cricket's most entertaining mad prince.