Former India cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar heaped huge praise on flamboyant all-rounder Hardik Pandya and feels his ability to perform under pressure is commendable. Pandya produced a sensational performance with both bat and ball in the Asia Cup encounter against arch-rivals Pakistan on Sunday.
The 28-year-old troubled the Pakistan batters with his well-executed short balls and claimed three wickets including the crucial one of Mohammad Rizwan. He came out to bat at a tricky stage where Pakistan were trying to bounce back in the game with quick wickets, however, Pandya with his calmness helped India register a sensational win. He smacked three boundaries in the penultimate over to shift momentum completely in India’s favour. While in the final over, he held his nerves and smashed a six on the fourth ball to seal the victory for India. He remained unbeaten on 33 runs off 17 balls.
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The former India batter talked about Pandya’s all-round ability as he hailed his calmness under pressure.
“Just his calmness. I mean everything about him is currently unreal. His bowling returns are unreal, which is fine, which is something that you get with others as well. But his ability to keep calm and get runs under pressure,” Manjrekar said on SPORTS18’s daily sports news show ‘SPORTS OVER THE TOP’.
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He further pointed out how Pandya shone under the pressure in the final over as he had only faced pacers before that in the match.
“That last over, you know last night was a tricky one because Hardik was in there and played the faster bowlers mostly and he was hitting the path. There was a rhythm of hitting against the quicker bowlers and suddenly the situation was such that Pakistan had to bring in the left-arm spinner in and Jadeja getting out to the first ball and then he had four balls to get those runs,” he added.
Manjrekar said that Pandya has a self-belief in him which helped him calm his nerves in the final over which he called ‘unreal’.
“I mean, the pressure is immense but the kind of shots also that he plays to get those winning runs under pressure is just outstanding. I’m sure from inside there is a bit of nerves, but he has this confidence currently which he said last night as well, is that he believes that the bowler would be under more pressure. So, he’s just in a zone where you think everything that he is doing is just unreal. Absolutely brilliant,” Manjrekar said.
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