Manish Pandey guns down Murugan Ashwin with a skyscraper-like six
Pandey scored 60 off 45 with four boundaries and a couple of sixes.
Manish Pandey had a day to remember when Karnataka beat Tamil Nadu by a solitary run in the final of the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 Trophy. Pandey was the skipper of the victorious Karnataka team and delivered the goods when it was most required of him. He was at his very best and bailed his team out of jail almost every time. It was a sort of day when nothing could’ve gone wrong for him.
After Tamil Nadu elected to field first, Ravi Ashwin got rid of KL Rahul and Mayank Agarwal in quick succession to put pressure on the Karnataka batting. Pandey came to bat with the score at 39 for two in 4.3 overs. The skipper had the in-form Devdutt Padikkal for company. Pandey made sure that he played until the very end and helped his side put up a significant score of 180 for five in 20 overs.
Pandey sends one into orbit
Pandey stayed unbeaten on 60 runs off 45 with the help of four glorious fours and a couple of gigantic hits over the ropes. One of his sixes came while facing leg-spinner Murugan Ashwin. The tweaker is a kind of bowler, who prefers to give the ball air in order to fox the batsmen. But in this case, it backfired as Pandey latched on to it. From over the wicket, Ashwin bowled a full-length ball.
But Pandey was equal to the task. He met the leather right underneath his eyes and made a proper connection. Once the ball met the willow, it was heading in only one direction. Pandey timed the shot so well that the ball was on an escalation even when it crossed the ropes. The shot came right out of the screws and the leather sailed over the ropes and outside the stadium with sheer ease.
Murugan looked in utter disbelief after Pandey’s gracefully brutal stroke down the ground. As far as the leg-spinner was concerned, he conceded 33 runs and wasn’t considered for his final over. But Ashwin didn’t overly disappoint as he got rid of Rohan Kadam and Karun Nair in the death overs. He was Tamil Nadu’s most expensive bowler on the day with an economy of 11.
Here is Manish Pandey’s video
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