Indian all-rounder Hardik Pandya turned out to be a lifesaver for captain Rohit Sharma in their high-voltage clash against Pakistan in the ongoing T20 World Cup 2022 which is being played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG).
Rohit Sharma won the toss and put Pakistan into bat first. Arshdeep Singh gave India a brilliant start by dismissing Babar Azam for a first-ball duck and then sent back Mohammad Rizwan cheaply as well.
Then Iftikhar Ahmed (51) and Shan Masood added 76 runs for the third wicket to stabilize the innings. Iftikhar hit 4 sixes in his knock, 3 of which came in one over of Akshar Patel. Mohammad Shami got him LBW to end his dangerous innings.
But then Hardik Pandya came into play, as he got the wickets of Shadab Khan (5) and Haider Ali (2) in the same over and then also accounted for Mohammad Nawaz for 9 runs, who looked dangerous.
Hardik Pandya has always done well with the ball against Pakistan and this was no different as he finished with figures of 3/30 in his 4 overs.
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His amazing reaction after getting Haider Ali out was captured by cameras as he just smiled at the shot Haider played as he tried to hoick a short ball over mid-wicket and was caught by Suryakumar Yadav. His dismissal was the same as Shadab’s who was also caught by Suryakumar, trying to hit one out of MCG.