Live Cricket TV, thank heavens that Virat Kohli was Virat Kohli, or else how would anyone compete with Sachin Tendulkar? And even now – all of 20,000-plus runs and 68 tons in international cricket later – one failed effort at an inopportune moment (think the 2019 World Cup semi-final, or the 2017 Champions Trophy final before that), and some still manage to burst into flames with anger. But guess what? At the end of his first year in ODI cricket, Kohli averaged under 32; when he finished his debut year in Tests, his average read 22; a year into his T20I career, he’d barely managed 17 runs per knock. Do you need any reminding at all that he averages above 50 in all three formats at this moment?

If we speak about limited overs cricket, and speak purely through the prism of T20s (since that’s an area of key immediate interest given the twin T20 World Cups over the next 26 months), Pant’s numbers propel him to special status – as long as you’re willing to ignore the nascent international record. He scores nearly 30 runs per innings in the 20-20 game, and hits them at a strike rate of 160.78 – eighth-best in 16 years of crash-and-bang cricket (with a qualifying parameter of 250 balls faced). Among all international players from Full-Member nations, the only batsmen who strike better than Pant in all T20s are Andre Russell, Hazratullah Zazai, Colin de Grandhomme and Seekkuge Prasanna Live Cricket TV.