Former India cricketers Robin Uthappa and Abhinav Mukund has called Hardik Pandya’s captaincy “baffling” after his decision to go back to Arshdeep Singh and not Yuzvendra Chahal in the 18th over.
Chasing 153 for victory, the hosts surpassed the total in 18.5 overs with just two wickets in hand. Tilak Varma (51 runs, 41b, 5×4, 1×6) emerged India’s top scorer while the in-form Nicholas Pooran led the West Indies’ scoring charts with 67 runs (40b, 6×4, 4×6).
India had their moments to seize back the initiative, especially after spinner Yuzvendra Chahal’s 16th over resulted in the fall of three wickets. Chahal was preparing to come on and bowl the 18th over as well with the hosts still needing 21 runs for victory. But, surprisingly pacer Arshdeep Singh was handed the ball and he ended up giving away nine runs.
“Ten times out of ten you would have gone with Chahal and tried to close out the game there, especially with Alzarri Joseph in there. I understand that the left-hander is still there, but you’ve got Hetmyer out in the previous over bowling a full one and you have the bigger boundary to deal with,” Mukund said on JioCinema.
“I was a bit baffled by the decision to go back to Arshdeep because he’s your strike bowler, your lead bowler.
“If you wanted to bowl him, you could bowl him in the 19th over, left Mukesh the last over, or even brought Arshdeep for the final over depending on the number of runs required.”
Uthappa also echoed Mukund’s views and said: “I have one expression – one Gen-Z expression for this moment – ‘pooof’ and not in a nice way.
“I am just mind-blown by how when a guy gets you three wickets in an over 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 know 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 judgement there,” he said.
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