“I had three celebrations in mind” - Rishabh Pant reveals the reason behind somersault celebration after his century

Team India vice-captain Rishabh Pant has revealed that he had three different celebrations in mind to celebrate his Test century against England in the ongoing Leeds Test in the new World Test Championship 2025-27 cycle.

While one of the celebrations was to let the bat do the talking, Pant decided to stick with his own celebration of doing the front flip. While speaking to Cheteshwar Pujara ahead of the third day’s play, Pant disclosed that he has been training in gymnastics since his childhood. 

“I had three celebrations in mind. One of them was ‘let the bat do the talking’. Then I thought, I’ll stick with mine. I’ve been doing it since childhood (the somersault). I trained in gymnastics during school,” Pant told Sony Sports.

“In school, I did gymnastics. I’m very used to it. Even if you wake me up in the middle of the night, I can do a somersault. After the accident, I had to work even harder at it. But I put in the work, and now it’s easy for me again,” he added.

Notably, Pant brought up his third Test century in England after smacking Shoaib Bashir for a six when he was on 99. Later, he dropped his bat and gloves onto the ground before entertaining the Leeds crowd with a front flip. 

Interestingly, Pant did the same celebration after his century in the IPL 2025 season for the Lucknow Super Giants in the last league game against the eventual champions Royal Challengers Bengaluru.

“When Bashir was bowling the previous over, I thought I should get to the hundred then and there. I didn’t want to play percentage cricket and take a risk—he bowled well, so I respected it and took a single. In the next over, when he came back, I told him, ‘If you keep the field close-in, I’ll go for the big shot.’ Luckily, I was on 99. I was confident, but I still wanted to play the ball on merit,” Pant stated.

At the end of Day 3, Team India took a 96-run lead with KL Rahul (47*) and Shubman Gill (6*) staying at the crease.

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