India all-rounder Hardik Pandya faced criticism for taking too long to settle during his team’s unsuccessful chase against England in the third T20I on Tuesday night. He came to bat in the final over of the Powerplay after captain Suryakumar Yadav’s dismissal but struggled to rotate the strike or find boundaries.
Chasing 172, India managed only 145/9 in Rajkot. Pandya, at one stage, was on 14 off 21 balls before hitting his first four of the match. However, both he and Axar Patel found it difficult to score freely as the required run rate kept increasing.
Hardik Pandya eventually scored 40 off 35 deliveries. Former India wicketkeeper-batter Parthiv Patel acknowledged that a batter needs time to adjust to the conditions but felt Pandya took too many balls, which put additional pressure on the other batters.
He said on a show, “I thought when you are taking your time you want to get used to the pace and bounce of the pitch. But you cannot take 20-25 balls to get settled. So that put pressure on the other batters as well. If you don’t want to play those big shots, that’s okay, but you still have to keep on rotating the strike. You can’t play three or four dot balls in a row.”
Parthiv certainly makes sense, what do you think?
