‘I have 5 girlfriends in my bag’ – Manish Pandey reveals his hilarious relationship with his cricket bats

Manish Pandey, the Indian right-handed batsman, has jokingly drawn comparisons with bats to having girlfriends. In fact, the Karnataka cricketer said that he treats his bats like people would be acting with their girl buddies. He loves his bats equally to that of his wife Ashrita Shetty, who’s also an actress. Back in December 2019, the duo tied the knots in Mumbai.

Manish, who has played 26 ODIs and 38 T20Is for the Men in Blue, said that he fights with his bats when he starts finding their edges. He reckons that each of his bat girlfriends are special and have a special place in his heart. Manish called the bat with which he scored his maiden IPL century his ‘shadow bat’. He turns to it whenever he becomes depressed and low.

I even end up having ‘fights’ with my bat: Manish Pandey

“In many ways, my bat is like a girlfriend, especially when I’m playing my matches and my actual girlfriend [now wife] isn’t around,” Manish was quoted as saying on the latest episode of Spicy Pitch.

“I even end up having ‘fights’ with my bat. I tell my bat that it has changed when I start to edge balls and it replies right back, ‘I think it’s you who’s changed!’,” he stated.

“I have 5 girlfriends in my bag — each of them is special for different occasions. For example, the bat with which I scored my IPL century is what I call my ‘shadow’ bat. I use it whenever I need a confidence booster or to prep for a big moment,” he added.

Last year, Manish didn’t have the worst of times. After the 2019 World Cup, he made his way into the Indian team. Though he didn’t play a whole lot of games, he kept getting picked in the national squads. He was also a part of India’s T20I and ODI squads for the New Zealand tour.

In 2019, he also won the Vijay Hazare Trophy and the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 Trophy with Karnataka. In fact, it was within 24 hours of the completion of the T20 tournament that he got married to Ashrita. In the IPL, Pandey plays for the Sunrisers Hyderabad, led by David Warner.