Michael Holding clarifies his harsh comments for Hardik Pandya

Indian all-rounder Hardik Pandya was phenomenal in India’s third Test against England and was one of the reasons behind the visiting team’s stupendous victory by 203 runs. He picked up his maiden five-wicket haul in the Brits’ first innings to help his team bowl the Three Lions out for 161 runs. In the second innings, he scored a magnificent half-century to guide India to a substantial lead.

Prior to the match, he was a recipient of a fair amount of criticism from supporters and even from pundits, former Windies cricketer Michael Holding was one of them. Subsequently, Holding was slammed for his outrageous comments. Recently, the cricketer turned commentator clarified his comments and mentioned that he never criticised Pandya, rather the ones who compared him to Kapil Dev.

He bowled a lot more in the third Test

“Please go back and listen to or read what I have said about Pandya. I was more critical of the people who were telling me he is the next Kapil Dev, not of Pandya himself. I have gone on to say that he is not the man to fill that sort of role as yet, batting at No. 6 and bowling.

What I am glad also to see is that I read somewhere that he had said he doesn’t want to be known as the new Kapil Dev; he is Hardik Pandya, which is the right attitude,” Holding was quoted as saying in News18.

Pandya picked up the wicket of Joe Root, the English captain, in his very first delivery. KL Rahul took a sharp catch in the slips. Thereafter, he didn’t look back and eventually finished with jaw-dropping figures of 6-1-28-5. The 64-year-old mentioned that the first wicket allowed Virat Kohli, the Indian captain, to entrust Pandya with more overs, which wasn’t the case in the first two Tests at Edgbaston and Lord’s.

“He (Pandya) only bowled 10 overs in the entire first Test (Edgbaston) and 17 in the entire second Test where the seamers on both teams were making the ball talk and batsmen were struggling. He got no runs in either of the first two Tests as well.

He bowled a lot more in the third Test and maybe that is down to the fact that he got a wicket with his first delivery, which then convinced his captain to give him more overs than in the first two Tests,” he added.

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