India, July 24 -- The notifications dropping in your phone in the morning, claiming Rishabh Pant has been ruled out of the series, weren't entirely untrue. He was, but not without giving this series a parting shot, a final dance.

The odds of it alone were huge since it's anatomically difficult to bat on one good leg. A toe fracture can be numbed with injections and sedatives but that foot still has to be slipped into a cricket boot before walking out to a field. We are talking about a lot of discomfort, if not acute pain if the sedatives wear off. But Pant has survived a near-fatal motor accident, so the spectre of this pain probably didn't bog him. He was ready for the dance.

So as Pant emerged from the dressing room and slowly walked ...