Former England spinner Graeme Swann was impressed by Hardik Pandya’s bowling in the recently concluded series against England. Pandya exploited the short ball and peppered the England batters with his length. Furthermore, the all-rounder bowled consistently around 140 km/h to trouble the opposition batters.
Pandya returned with figures of 4-24 in the third deciding ODI against England, which is his best bowling return in the 50-overs version. The right-arm pacer got all of his four wickets on short-pitched deliveries. Pandya accounted for Jason Roy, Ben Stokes, Liam Livingstone, and Jos Buttler and thus played a key role in skittling out England at 259 runs.
Pandya likes bowling short and he was able to hit the right line and length on the England pitches. The all-rounder scalped six wickets in three ODI matches as he bowled at the top of his game. Pandya was ready to bend his back and he proved his bowling fitness against England.
Graeme Swann said while talking to Sony Sports, ”I love the way he (Hardik) went about it. He bowled short, and Hardik has got good pace. He is one of those guys, because he is an all-rounder, you think he would just be a medium pacer but he is not, he is quicker than that and he is a strong lad.”
“He has got good height, so when he digs it in, he can really trouble top batters. He didn’t get the tail-enders out, he got the proper England batters out, the top order, so well done to Hardik. It was a very simple game plan, run up, hit the deck hard and bowl good quick bouncers. The bouncer is alive and well in ODI cricket and I love it.”
On the other hand, former Indian pacer Ashish Nehra reckons Pandya gives a lot of options to the Indian team as an all-rounder. Pandya also scored a fine knock of 71 runs off just 55 balls in the decider of the ODI series. The right-hander scored a total of 100 runs in two innings and he was awarded the Player of the Series.
“When you talk about Hardik Pandya, he is an amazing all-rounder. I have been regularly saying that Hardik Pandya fits in any white-ball team purely as a batter and I would say even in Test matches, and when he bowls along with that, then even better, he gives the team a lot of options.”
Nehra was full of praise on Hardik Pandya for getting the better of Liam Livingstone, Jos Buttler, and Ben Stokes in the third ODI.
“You can count him as your fifth or sixth bowler, I will say that he has so much ability that you can even count him as your fourth bowler at times. But keep the number aside, it does not make a difference. It matters how he is bowling, the way he dismissed Ben Stokes on the bouncy Manchester pitch and the battle he had with Buttler and Livingstone.”
Pandya will now be seen in action in the T20I series against the West Indies.
