Rishabh Pant vs KL Rahul Stats: Test, ODI, T20I & IPL
By CricketTaken EditorialPublished Cricket in India9 min read
Rishabh Pant averages 42.91 in Test cricket and KL Rahul 35.71. That single gap of seven runs an innings is the strongest argument in this comparison, and it is why India has usually kept Pant in the red-ball side and moved Rahul around it.
Reverse the format and the argument reverses with it. Rahul has 3,283 one-day runs at 49.74 to Pant's 871 at 33.50, and 2,149 Twenty20 international runs at 36.42 to Pant's 1,142 at 22.39. In the Indian Premier League Rahul has 5,828 runs at 45.53 and Pant 3,879 at 33.73.
Both keep wicket, both have batted between four and six for India, and both have captained IPL franchises. What separates them is that Pant's method — attacking from the first ball, hitting spin over the top, playing the reverse sweep against fast bowling — has produced far more in five-day cricket than in the formats it looks better suited to.
The four formats
| Format | Rishabh Pant | KL Rahul |
|---|---|---|
| Tests | 49 matches, 3,476 runs at 42.91, 8 hundreds, HS 159* | 66 matches, 3,999 runs at 35.71, 11 hundreds, HS 199 |
| ODIs | 31 matches, 871 runs at 33.50, 1 hundred, HS 125* | 93 matches, 3,283 runs at 49.74, 8 hundreds, HS 112* |
| T20Is | 72 matches, 1,142 runs at 22.39, 0 hundreds, HS 65* | 69 matches, 2,149 runs at 36.42, 2 hundreds, HS 110* |
| IPL | 139 matches, 3,879 runs at 33.73, 2 hundreds, HS 128* | 160 matches, 5,828 runs at 45.53, 6 hundreds, HS 152* |
Rahul leads on runs in every format. Pant leads on average in only one, and it is the one that matters most to how India has selected them.
Test cricket, where Pant's case is made
| Measure | Rishabh Pant | KL Rahul |
|---|---|---|
| Matches | 49 | 66 |
| Innings | 86 | 117 |
| Runs | 3,476 | 3,999 |
| Average | 42.91 | 35.71 |
| Strike rate | 74.24 | 51.63 |
| Hundreds | 8 | 11 |
| Fifties | 18 | 19 |
| Sixes | 95 | 30 |
Pant scores at 74.24 in Test cricket, which is faster than most specialist batters manage in one-day cricket in earlier eras, and he does it while keeping wicket. Rahul's 51.63 is the more conventional Test rate.
The six count is the difference stated plainly. Pant's 95 in 86 innings against Rahul's 30 in 117 is not a stylistic footnote; it is how he converts a slow session into a fast one. He has since passed 100 Test sixes, the first Indian to do so, and holds the record for the most Test sixes by any wicketkeeper in the game's history, having gone past Adam Gilchrist's hundred.
Rahul's three extra hundreds and his 199 at Chepauk against England in December 2016 give him the larger individual innings and the higher century count. On the balance of the columns, Pant has been the better Test batter and Rahul the more prolific one.
One-day cricket, where Rahul's is
| Measure | Rishabh Pant | KL Rahul |
|---|---|---|
| Matches | 31 | 93 |
| Innings | 27 | 86 |
| Runs | 871 | 3,283 |
| Average | 33.50 | 49.74 |
| Strike rate | 106.22 | 91.02 |
| Hundreds | 1 | 8 |
| Fifties | 5 | 19 |
Rahul has three times the matches and nearly four times the runs at an average sixteen higher. There is no reading of this table that favours Pant except the strike rate, where he is fifteen ahead.
Rahul's fifty-over record is the strongest part of his international career. Twenty not-outs from 86 innings across his ODI career show a man who has spent much of it finishing from five or six while keeping wicket, and an average approaching fifty in that role is unusual.
Pant's 31 caps have come in fits and starts, interrupted by India's preference for Rahul with the gloves in the format and by his own absence from cricket entirely through 2023. His one hundred, 125 not out, remains his only three-figure score in white-ball international cricket.
Twenty20 internationals
| Measure | Rishabh Pant | KL Rahul |
|---|---|---|
| Matches | 72 | 69 |
| Runs | 1,142 | 2,149 |
| Average | 22.39 | 36.42 |
| Strike rate | 125.49 | 139.18 |
| Fifties | 3 | 20 |
| Sixes | 41 | 96 |
Almost identical numbers of caps and a thousand runs apart. Pant averages 22.39 at a strike rate of 125.49; Rahul averages 36.42 at 139.18 — higher on both measures, which is the least ambiguous line on this page.
Twenty fifties to three is the starkest column. Pant's Twenty20 international record is the weakest part of a career that is otherwise strong, and the reason India persisted with him for 72 matches was the belief that the Test and IPL method would eventually transfer. It did not.
The Indian Premier League
| Season | Pant runs (SR) | Rahul runs (SR) |
|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 198 (130.3) | 397 (146.5) |
| 2017 | 366 (165.6) | — |
| 2018 | 684 (173.6) | 659 (158.4) |
| 2019 | 488 (162.7) | 593 (135.4) |
| 2020 | 343 (114.0) | 670 (129.3) |
| 2021 | 419 (128.5) | 626 (138.8) |
| 2022 | 340 (151.8) | 616 (135.4) |
| 2023 | — | 274 (113.2) |
| 2024 | 446 (155.4) | 520 (136.1) |
| 2025 | 269 (133.2) | 539 (149.7) |
| 2026 | 312 (138.1) | 593 (174.4) |
Pant missed the 2023 season entirely following his car accident in December 2022, and Rahul did not play in 2017. Rahul's earliest seasons, from 2013 to 2015, predate Pant's debut and are omitted here; his full record is in the Shubman Gill against KL Rahul comparison.
Pant's 2018 is the single best season either has had in the competition by strike rate — 684 runs at 173.6, including a 128 not out that is still his highest IPL score. Rahul has been steadier: eight seasons of 500 or more against Pant's one, and only two seasons below 400 in eleven.
| Career IPL | Pant | Rahul |
|---|---|---|
| Innings | 140 | 153 |
| Runs | 3,879 | 5,828 |
| Average | 33.73 | 45.53 |
| Strike rate | 146.71 | 139.16 |
| Hundreds | 2 | 6 |
| Fifties | 20 | 45 |
| Sixes | 181 | 239 |
Rahul has nearly two thousand more runs at an average twelve higher. Pant strikes seven and a half runs per hundred balls faster and has hit 181 sixes in thirteen fewer innings, so on a per-innings basis the two are close on six-hitting despite the gap in totals.
The IPL's most runs leaderboard has both totals, and the most wicketkeeper dismissals page covers the other half of what each does in the competition.
Both keep, but differently
| Rishabh Pant | KL Rahul | |
|---|---|---|
| Primary Test role | Wicketkeeper-batter | Opener, sometimes keeper |
| Primary ODI role | Middle-order keeper, intermittent | Middle-order keeper, first choice |
| Test batting position | 5, 6 or 7 | Opening, or middle order |
| IPL franchises | Two | Five |
| Career interruption | Absent through 2023 | Recurrent injury and form breaks |
Rahul took the gloves in one-day cricket partly to allow India to fit an extra bowler, and has kept in Tests when the selectors wanted a specialist batter and a keeper in the same slot. Pant has been picked as a keeper first throughout.
Six things the tables do not say:
- Pant is the first Indian to hit 100 sixes in Test cricket and holds the record for the most Test sixes by any wicketkeeper, having passed Adam Gilchrist.
- Rahul has scored more international runs than Pant in every format, and Pant has the higher average in only Tests.
- Pant's Test strike rate of 74.24 is more than twenty-two higher than Rahul's, the largest gap between them in any single measure.
- Rahul has six IPL hundreds to Pant's two, but Pant's 128 not out came at a higher rate than any of Rahul's.
- Neither has a Twenty20 international record that matches his standing in the other formats, though Rahul's is comfortably the better of the two.
- Pant's absence through 2023 removed a full year from a career that was ten seasons old at that point, and his figures since have not returned to the 2018 peak.
What the comparison decides
For a Test side that wants a keeper who can change a session, Pant is the choice and the seven-run gap in averages is the reason. For a one-day or Twenty20 side that wants a keeper who can bat at five and finish, Rahul is the choice and the sixteen-run gap in ODI averages is the reason.
They have rarely been direct rivals for the same place, because India's Test XI and its white-ball XI have wanted different things from the position. Where they have competed — briefly, for the one-day gloves — Rahul has held it.
Rishabh Pant against MS Dhoni sets Pant against the standard he is measured by, and MS Dhoni against KL Rahul does the same on Rahul's side. The players index lists the set, the profiles for Rishabh Pant and KL Rahul carry the biographies, and the cricket in India hub places both careers.
Sources and method
Career figures for both players across Tests, ODIs, T20Is and the IPL come from their records on this site as last revised, and the season-by-season IPL splits from the ball-by-ball archive of the competition through the 2026 final.
Two claims about Pant's six-hitting are drawn from published coverage rather than from this site's dataset, and are dated accordingly. That he became the first Indian to reach 100 Test sixes, and that he holds the record for the most Test sixes by any wicketkeeper, having gone past Adam Gilchrist's hundred, were both reported during India's Test series in Sri Lanka in August 2026. The table above gives 95, which is the figure in this site's compilation and predates that milestone; the two are consistent with each other in sequence rather than contradictory.
Rahul's Test totals are likewise a snapshot. Later published records in 2026 show him past 4,000 Test runs with a twelfth hundred, and the row here reflects the compilation date rather than today.
Pant's absence from the 2023 IPL season is stated as a fact of the record — he played no matches that year — and the reason is given because it explains a gap that would otherwise look like a selection decision. Comparisons of role and of why each has been selected in a given format are descriptive, resting on the pattern of selection rather than on any computed measure. No adjustment has been made for opposition, venue or conditions. Both players were active when this page was written. All figures current as of 28 August 2026.