Former Indian batsman Sanjay Manjrekar has picked his top three moments from India’s tour to Australia.
India had a successful tour as they won the three-match T20I series but most importantly they won the Border-Gavaskar trophy by 2-1. India showed great resilience and character to come out as winners despite the absence of their skipper Virat Kohli and a spate of injuries.
Meanwhile, Manjrekar’s first top moment of the series was India’s comeback in the Boxing Day Test match after they were skittled out for 36. The way the visitors bounced back after the Adelaide collapse was inspiring as not many had backed them to win the MCG Test. However, Ajinkya Rahane led from the front and scored a majestic hundred in the Boxing Day Test match to help the team take a 131 runs lead.
Furthermore, India came up with a collective effort as Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj and Shubman Gill all contributed to the win.
“My first one is to get all out on 36 and then to make a comeback in Melbourne. In 1974 when India was all out for 42, we lost the next Test match by an innings and 74 runs. But here we went on to win the next match in Melbourne. This was a historic moment because before that there was a historic loss,” said Manjrekar while talking to Sony Sports.
Manjrekar’s second favourite moment of the tour was when Ravindra Jadeja hit the bullseye from square-leg to run-out Steve Smith in the Sydney Test when he had only one stump to aim at. Jadeja came up with a rocket throw and gave no chance to Smith to get back for the second.
“My first one is to get all out on 36 and then to make a comeback in Melbourne. In 1974 when India was all out for 42, we lost the next Test match by an innings and 74 runs. But here we went on to win the next match in Melbourne. This was a historic moment because before that there was a historic loss,” said Manjrekar.
On the other hand, Manjrekar picked Hardik Pandya’s performances in the limited overs format as his top moment of the Australian tour. Pandya played as a specialist batsman and delivered the goods in both the ODI and T20I series. The right-hander scored 210 runs in three ODIs whereas he scored 78 runs in the T20I series.
“My third moment is Hardik Pandya’s success in the limited-overs series as a pure batsman. We had seen in the IPL that he can play as a pure batsman in T20s but there was a question if he can play as a pure batsman in 50-over cricket. But on this tour, we surely came to know that Hardik Pandya can play as a pure batsman in 50-over cricket as well,” concluded Manjrekar.
