IPL 2020: This is as good as Manish Pandey has ever played, opines Harsha Bhogle

Hyderabad brushed Rajasthan aside in Match 40 of the Indian Premier League 2020, at Dubai. Hyderabad bowled well, with especially Jason Holder (4-0-33-3), Vijay Shankar (3-0-15-1), and Rashid Khan (4-0-20-1) leading the way, to restrict Rajasthan to 154/6. Jofra Archer (4-0-21-2) then reduced Hyderabad to 16/2 before Manish Pandey (83* in 47 balls) and Shankar (52* in 51) saw them to an 8-wicket win with 11 balls to spare.

Harsha Bhogle spoke highly of Pandey in the My11 Circle Cricbuzz Analysis: “They [Hyderabad] were in trouble, make no mistake, against a sub-par score with Jofra Archer bowling like the wind … But when you pay big bucks to your top-order batsmen, this is the kind of innings you want them to play, where you not just weather the storm but you take the attack to the opposition. Not a cameo, not a 30-35, but you take the team time. I have seen Manish Pandey play some good innings, but this is as good as he has ever played.”

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While lauding Archer’s superb probing, Bhogle pointed out how dependent the Rajasthan was on him: “It’s looking like Archer at one end, and then [Steven] Smith is looking around.”

For Rajasthan, Ben Stokes has not lived up to the immense expectations. Lisa Sthalekar explained: “I think they really have to got to have a look at Ben Stokes and what he is giving them. That is international sport, and he is not just performing with bat or ball, and maybe he just needs some time out.”

Elaborating on what went wrong with his batting, Sthalekar explained: “You just need to have fast hands, get the ball in the middle of the bat, but he was trying to hit himself out of form, out of the slump he is in.”

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Bhogle agreed: “Ben Stokes is an outstanding Test match cricketer and a very, very high-calibre One-Day cricketer. Those numbers force a question whether he is as good in the T20 format.” Following ordinary shows in 2018 and 2019, Stokes has scored 110 runs in 2020 at a strike rate of 106.79, while his bowling figures read 8-0-82-0.

Thanks to the win, Sunrisers jumped from seventh to fifth place, while Rajasthan slid to seventh. They are above only Chennai.