Pandya Shows His Class In Huge Chase
Holding an extreme view and carting the ball out of the park is what interests him most. He is a hard hitter at all times. Fasten your seatbelts and read.
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By Slogger
First publised on 2020-12-07 05:50:33
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Holding an extreme view and carting the ball out of the park is what interests him most. He is a hard hitter at all times. Fasten your seatbelts and read.
View all posts by this Author
Any team that wins the toss, puts the opposition in and then allows them to run away with a huge total has its back to the wall. India found them in this position in the 2nd T20 when Australia put up 194 on the board as, barring T Natarajan, none of the bowlers made any impression on the Aussie line-up which was without Aaron Finch and David Warner. Stand-in skipper Matthew Wade started the attack and almost every Australian batsman made it clear that the team had come out with a game plan to go after all Indian bowlers.
At one time, it looked as if the Australians would score in excess of 220. But India did well in the middle overs. While Chahar and Chahal failed to impress, it was Natarajan and to some extent Washington Sundar and Shardul Thakur who checked the Aussies. Natarajan was brilliant and had a spell of 4-0-20-2. He gave the first breakthrough by dismissing D Short and then returned to end the innings of the dangerous Henriques. With each outing, Natarajan is showing why he is an invaluable asset to the team in this format of the game.
When India came out to bat, they too kept the score board ticking with both Rahul and Dhawan playing their shots. Later, Kohli too was outstanding and improvised to keep the asking rate manageable. But when Kohli got out and the run rate climbed to 12 per over in the last five overs, it became difficult for the Indians. But no one had reckoned with Hardik Pandya delivering the knockout punch in the way he did. Pandya is having a dream tour and once again showed why he is fast emerging as the best finisher in this format. He scored 42 runs from just 22 balls. But the biggest thing is that he did not wilt under pressure, kept a cool head and showed amazing shot selection to guide the team to victory. He deservingly won the Man of the Match award.
