Doctors told Rishabh Pant that he would take at least 18 months to recover from the career-threatening injuries he suffered in a horrific car crash in December 2023, but Pant told the doctors, 'I am going to show you I can do it in 12 months.'
The BCCI on Thursday posted part 1 of Pant's road to recovery documentary and titled it 'Miracle Man.'
Dr. Dinshaw Pardiwala - Director, Center for Sports Medicine, Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital, Mumbai, who handled Pant's surgery revealed, 'To get back to competitive cricket after a high-velocity dislocation, you need a miracle. And that when he said, 'I am a miracle man', I have managed two, I am going to certainly manage the third one.'
"As surgeons and as doctors, it's very important for us to inform our patients, their family and all the stakeholders of No. 1: What is the actual status of the injury? Rishabh's mother, of course, was with him. She was very concerned whether he would ever be able to walk again. I told her 'Look, I can at least promise you that we are going to make sure he walks again and make sure that he is like anyone normal'.
"I told her 'Because this is such a critical injury, we will definitely aim for him to get back to cricket, aim for him to get back to competitive cricket. But that's going to be a long drawn-out process. And it's better that we take each step as it comes. Step No. 1 is taking care of the surgery, making sure that everything that goes around with the surgery goes well taking care of that rehab, going very slow in the initial phase so that we don't disturb the healing process and then accelerating a little bit in the subsequent phases to get back the strength and movement, the agility and other aspects that are important for sports."
"When I told Rishabh 18 months, he said 'okay, I am going to show you I can do it in 12 months'," he added.
The BCCI recently cleared Pant as a wicketkeeper-batter for IPL 2024 as it will mark his much anticipated return after a horrific car crash in December 2023.
He hasn't played any competitive cricket since then and was undergoing rehabilitation at the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru.
The accident had left Pant with a severe right knee injury that required a ligament reconstruction surgery besides a fractured wrist and ankle.