Former India opener Abhinav Mukund was left speechless by India captain Hardik Pandya’s decision-making process in the team’s 2-wicket loss to West Indies in the second T20I of the five-match series in Guyana on August 6.
Defending a below-par 152 to go level in the series, West Indies were 126/4 after Nicholas Pooran’s brilliant counterattacking 67 took them out of a precarious position.
Then Yuzvendra Chahal struck twice in the same over to remove Shimron Hetmyer and Jason Holder after Mukesh Kumar had gotten rid of Pooran.
At 129/8 in 16 overs, India had the match in their grasp, but Hardik Pandya made a crucial mistake and went back to his pacers Arshdeep Singh and Mukesh Kumar, and West Indies’ Akeal Hosein and Alzarri Joseph made merry against the speed.
West Indies won the match by 2 wickets and 7 balls to spare and went 2-0 up in the series.
In post-match coverage, Mukund said despite left-hander Akeal Hosein at the crease, Chahal should have persisted with. Notably, Hardik also had the option of bringing in Akshar Patel into the attack, but the left-arm spinner didn’t even get a single over in.
“I can’t get an explanation for it because 10 times out of 10 you would have gone with another over from Chahal and tried to close out the game there, especially with Alzarri Joseph. I understand the left-hander is still there, but you got Hetmyer out in the previous over, bowling a full one. You have the bigger boundary to deal with,” said Mukund on JioCinema.
He added, “I was just a bit baffled by that decision to go back to Arshdeep because he is your strike bowler. If you wanted to bowl him, you could have had him bowl the 19th, left the last over to Mukesh or even brought Arshdeep for the final over, depending on the number of runs.”
His fellow expert Robin Uthappa was equally mind-blown by Hardik’s decisions.
He said: “I have one expression – one Gen-Z expression for this moment – ‘poof’ and not in a nice way. I am just mind-blown by how when a guy gets you three wickets in an over (Chahal took two and one was a run-out) essentially you don’t bring him back for another one and kind of close the game completely.”
“The likes of Alzarri Joseph are not going to contend with the experience and class of a Yuzi Chahal. He knows how to bowl to these lower-order batsmen, he knows how to get them out. And Akeal Hosein is not gonna take him on, not at that point with three overs to go. He would have backed himself with two overs to go perhaps, not three overs to go. So, you knew there was an error in judgment there,” he added.
India had clinched the Test and ODI series 1-0 and 2-1 but now trail the T20Is 0-2 with three matches to go.
