Ranji Trophy 2018-19: Manish Pandey tries to sledge Cheteshwar Pujara; latter hits a six to give a fitting response

The ongoing Ranji Trophy semi-final between Saurashtra and Karnataka at the Chinnaswamy Stadium is nicely poised. The action in the middle is also heated up with Cheteshwar Pujara not walking despite edging the ball even as the umpire gave him not out. He was batting on just one run then and could’ve been a massive advantage for the home side.

Nevertheless, Pujara put his head down and continued to bat patiently and piled on the agony for the opposition. Though Karnataka picked wickets from the other end to stay upbeat. Meanwhile, during the 47th over of the innings, Manish Pandey, standing at the slips tried to get into Pujara’s ears.

In an attempt to encourage the bowler Shreyas Gopal, he said, “One lazy shot and he (Pujara) will get out.” Pujara is fresh off the Australia tour where the opposition found him hard to get better of him and even tried to sledge him. But he never responded. However, in this case, the batsman decided to give a fitting response to Pandey.

Next ball in the stands

The first delivery of the over from Gopal pitched on the leg-stump and Cheteshwar Pujara was quick to rock on the back foot and play the pull shot in the air. The ball had hit the middle of the bat and it went into the stands which eventually turned out to be a brilliant response to the sledge. The shot took him to 35 after which the batsman once again went into the zone to defend the balls.

Here’s the video:

Pujara went on to score 45 runs before getting out to Abhimanyu Mithun as his team is struggling at 227/7 in the first innings in response to Karnataka’s 275. The game is interestingly poised and the first innings lead will be crucial and with three days left, the result will definitely come out.

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