Hardik Pandya, India’s stand-in skipper, described the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium surface as a “shocker” as his team chased down 100 leaving the penultimate ball in the second T20I against New Zealand.
In the match that took place on 29th January, Arjuna awardee Gautam Gambhir was extremely surprised by Hardik Pandya’s decision on making part-timer Deepak Hooda complete his quota of four overs instead of Yuzvendra Chahal in the second T20I in Lucknow.
Chahal bowled two overs, one of which was a boundary, and finished with 2-1-4-1 stats. Chahal provided India’s first breakthrough by dismissing Finn Allen, who struck two fours and scored 11 off 10 balls.
According to Gambhir, the best Indian opener after Gavaskar, Hardik failed to capitalize as Chahal might have helped India win in less time.
He acknowledged that youngsters like Arshdeep Singh and expensive pacer Shivam Mavi should be given chances, but he also believes that if Chahal had bowled his entire quota of overs, New Zealand would have been knocked out for 80 or 85 runs.
Further, he argued that the decision did not make sense, particularly given that he is now India’s number-one spinner in the low-scoring matches.
But it seemed that Captain Pandya had a different strategy of gameplay where he made the Kiwis keep guessing and stressing on who will bowl in the next over as India now has many choices in pacer selection. He tried out on the new spinners to challenge the New Zealand batsmen.
Blue’s captain too was confused about deciding who would be fit to take the wicket. And only in the 18th over did Hardik send in fast bowler Arshdeep, and he contributed by using bouncers and scoring two wickets, removing Ish Sodhi (1) and Lockie Ferguson (0). India beats New Zealand by six wickets and leveled the three-match T20I series.