Rishabh Pant’s diet secret REVEALED that helped him to make India comeback

The BCCI selection committee on Tuesday (Apr 30) picked wicketkeeper batter Rishabh Pant in the 15-member India squad for the upcoming T20 World Cup in the West Indies and USA. Pant'scomeback after suffering a nearly fatalcar crash is nothing short ofa fairytale but to make the WC flight, he had to make big sacrifices.

In order togive the best account of himself for T20 WC consideration, Pant went on a strict food diet that helped him to achieve match fitness. As per a report inTimes of India,Pant had to snub his favourite food items like fried chicken, biryani and ras malai.

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"He adopted a calorie-deficit dietsincelate December. If his body demanded 1400 calories a day, he was given around 1000 calories. It was tough on him since he had to train very hard to gainmatch-fitnessand had to strengthen the muscles on his injured right leg," a source involved in Pant's rehabilitation was quoted as saying.

In an attempt to not get bored by the same, flavourless food, Pant moved into a rented house in Bengaluru while he was undergoing rehabilitation at the National Cricket Academy (NCA).

"He was allowed only 5 ml of extra virgin olive oil. He couldn't give up his love for chilly chicken. So, a recipe was derived to make it with that much oil. Goanbhindiwas one of his favourites," the source added.

Pant lost considerable weight

Apart from strict food habits, Pant focused on taking solid sleep at night, devoid of distractions brought by the electronic gadgets.

"All gadgets, including phones, iPads and TVs were shut down by 11 in the night. He had to haveeight-ninehours of uninterrupted sleep to get back to rigorous trainingnextmorning," the report quoted a source as saying.

As a result, Pant lost close to 16 kilogrammesover the course offour months, leading up to the start of the IPL where he had already played some sizzling knocks for Delhi Capitals

The car crash had caused significant physical damage to Pant who was forced to step back from the game. According to reports, the Indian dasher suffered a severe right knee injury that required ligament reconstruction surgery. He also had a fractured wrist and ankle that took significant physiotherapy to heal.

India squad:

Rohit Sharma (c), Hardik Pandya (vc), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant (wk), Sanju Samson (wk), Shivam Dube, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Arshdeep Singh, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohd. Siraj

Reserves:Shubman Gill, Rinku Singh, Khaleel Ahmed and Avesh Khan

(With inputs from agencies)