It was all down to Himachal bowlers to make an effort to stay in the game, but Pant, partnering his senior pro, Gautam Gambhir, put changed gears straightaway and brought up his fifty off only 18 deliveries. While Gambhir was more sedate at one end, Pant didn’t bring an end to the carnage and took only 14 deliveries to get to the century mark.

Last year, the Delhi lad scored the fastest century in Ranji Trophy history when he scored 100 off 48 balls in Delhi’s second innings against Jharkhand and that had made him the first Indian to score a first-class century in below 50 balls. However, Shakti Singh of Himachal Pradesh, later claimed that the record for the fastest hundred in domestic first-class cricket still belongs to him and only the lack of official scorers during the 1990-91 Ranji Trophy match between Himachal Pradesh and Haryana robbed him off the official record.