The Oddsworth Smell Test
Claim
“Rishabh Pant is as important to India in Tests as Virat Kohli and Jasprit Bumrah.”
Half right
Data Since August 2018 Pant's batting average beats India's other Test keepers by 28%, against Bumrah's 46% over India's other quicks and Kohli's 2% over the top six.
A wicketkeeper earns his place against the other wicketkeepers, and that is where Pant's case starts. In India's men's Tests since his debut in August 2018, his batting average is 43.4, against 34 for India's other keepers.
Bumrah's gap is wider still. Over the same Tests his bowling average is 19.4 against 28.4 for India's other pace bowlers, and that is the widest gulf of the three.
Kohli against the rest of the top six
Then Kohli, and the surprise. His batting average over the same Tests is 38.6, and India's other top-six batters have managed 37.8.
Put another way, a Kohli innings since Pant arrived has been worth about as much as one from the batters around him. Perhaps the top six has been unusually deep; perhaps his own bat went quiet for long stretches. Either way, on this measure he has been one good batter in a line of several.
Where that leaves the claim
Set against the other players India use in each role, Pant sits well clear of Kohli. The other keepers fall a long way short of him, while the other top-six batters sit almost level with Kohli. Against Bumrah he trails, because the other quicks are further behind Bumrah than the other keepers are behind Pant.
So the claim holds against one name and falls short against the other. Pant has mattered more to this India side than Kohli, by some distance, and less than Bumrah.