'That’s why Manish Pandey failed to cement his place in the Indian team' - Ashish Nehra slams the batter for his slow knock against RCB

The sixth match of IPL 2021 between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Sunrisers Hyderabad was a thrilling affair as RCB managed to clinch the match in the last over owing to their disciplined bowling action. Chasing 150, SRH were deemed as the favorites as their skipper David Warner played a match-defining knock of 54 runs.

However, the 17th over by Shahbaz Ahmed proved to be the turning point of the game as Ahmed took three wickets, of Jonny Bairstow, Manish Pandey, and Abdul Samad to help his team win by 6 runs. After the loss, Manish Pandey was placed under scrutiny for his shot selection as he had already faced 38 balls and should have ensured that SRH wins the game.

Former Indian cricketer Ashish Nehra seemed unimpressed with the performance of SRH batters against Shahbaz Nadeem as he compared them with tail-enders saying that their dismissals didn’t look like those of good players.

“Virat Kohli deployed his only left-arm spinner at the right time. But the way SRH batters – Jonny Bairstow, Manish Pandey, and Abdul Samad got out, it didn’t seem like proper batters are getting out. They appeared to be losing wickets like tailenders, especially Pandey,” Ashish Nehra told Cricbuzz

Ashish Nehra opines on the reason behind Manish Pandey’s exclusion from the Indian team

“When the players at positions 9, 10, 11 don’t have many options against moving deliveries, they target only mid-wicket and long on. And that’s a major difference. When you are in a good form and know how to play under pressure, you have options to hit those away going deliveries towards mid-off or cover,” he added. 

Further, Ashish criticized Pandey saying that his ability to play under pressure situations is the main reason behind him not getting selected for the Indian team. Nehra believes that Hardik Pandya, Ishan Kishan, Rishabh Pant, and Suryakumar Yadav have gone past Manish as they are better at adapting to the situations.

“And that’s why Manish Pandey failed to cement his place in the Indian team. You look when he made his debut, and then the likes of Hardik Pandya, Ishan Kishan, Rishabh Pant, and Suryakumar Yadav came and went far ahead. Because these players are much better at adapting to the pressure and that’s why they leapfrogged Pandey,” he concluded.