IPL

Manish Pandey Reveals How Laxman’s Guidance Helped Him

Shruti Banerjee

Shruti Banerjee
প্রকাশের তারিখ: 21:55 শুক্রবার, 23 অক্টোবর, 2020

|| Indian Correspondent ||

Manish Pandey steered Sunrisers Hyderabad to a convincing win against Rajasthan Royals with a stunning 83* off 47 who said that interaction with former batting great VVS Laxman before the game helped him to do well while playing shots in Dubai on Thursday.

Along with Pandey, Vijay Shankar's unbeaten 52 helped SRH to win the game while chasing 155.

"There were enough talks around our middle order. High time for one of us in the top three to perform. I just wanted to stay on the wicket and play my shots. Before the match I had a word with VVS Laxman (mentor). Earlier I used to have a lot of thoughts before going to bat," he said.

"Really happy that it came off today. We had the opportunity to win the game for SRH, really happy I'm standing here," he again added.

It was Jofra Archer, who removed two of their openers inside the power play. However, they didn’t use Archer further and that certainly cost them the game. If Archer was given the third over, it might have been different for them as well.

"Doesn't matter, we had plans to see Jofra off. There were a couple of leggies and Indian bowlers in the middle overs to score runs off, and it paid off. The first ball I middled through covers and I tried to keep my shape. I was hitting it well and I tried to get my team over the line,” he said.

"Vijay was also long due, he has been doing well with the ball and today he stepped up for us batting at 4. I'm happy for him. We are trying to take positives from this match and we'll try to keep it up for the rest of the tournament," he again shared.

Vijay Shankar, who returned to the game after having three poor batting performances, said that it was a do or die game for him as well. However, he also bowled an important spell of 1/15 from 3 overs, dismissing Jos Buttler.

"I have been bowling pretty well, I don't know when I will get the ball - today I bowled the sixth over - so I just wanted to be ready whenever I'm called. I tried to take pace off, hit the hard length and bowl cross-seamed. On these wickets when you hit the hard length, there is something for the bowlers," he said.

"We just thought we should take the game deep. We knew Jofra will come hard at us. Personally this was a do-or-die game for me. I batted just 18 balls prior to this. It was a good challenge and I was looking forward to something like this because it will give me a lot of confidence if I do well in that situation,” he added.

"I asked Manish if I should go for the shots because I didn't want him to feel the pressure because of me slowing down and play a rash shot. We were communicating well in that partnership, that's why we were able to take the game deep," he concluded.