Manish Pandey made 26, 37 and 11 runs in three ODIs against Sri Lanka.
The 31-year-old showed a lot of promise coming from the batch of the 2008 U19 World Cup-winning team which was led by Virat Kohli. While Kohli and teammate Ravindra Jadeja have cemented their spots in the Indian team across formats, Pandey failed to form a consistent run since his brilliant ODI debut against Zimbabwe in 2015 scoring 71.
He then showed another glimpse of his enormous talent scoring his maiden ODI ton in a brilliant chase in Australia against the hosts. However, since then he has been surpassed for the position of no.4 spot in the limited-overs team by the likes of Ambati Rayudu, Shreyas Iyer, and now possibly Suryakumar Yadav.
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Injuries and inconsistent form led to Manish Pandey, who has played 28 ODIs and 39 T20Is for India, being unable to cement his spot.
He had a golden chance to do so keeping in mind the three back-to-back ICC events in 2021, 2022, and 2023, when India toured Sri Lanka for a six-match limited-overs series that includes 3 ODIs and 3 T20Is. Pandey played all the three ODIs and while expected to score something substantial, ended up with scores of 26 and 37 in the first two ODIs.
While he threw away his wicket in the first ODI for 26, he was unluckily run out for 37. However, his failure to build on a good start in the third ODI, as he fell for 11 runs after an extended rain break, led to cricket fans wondering about his future in the Blue jersey on Twitter.
Here are some of the tweets: