IPL 2018: Manish Pandey's presence of mind saves Shakib Al Hasan

Mental awareness is a crucial element in the game of cricket as it allows a team to pounce on every opportunity and not allow any mishap to take place. Manish Pandey, who is representing SRH, showed some great alertness while batting, which saved his Bangladeshi partner Shakib Al Hasan to perish for a duck.

The act also earned him the Star Plus Nayi Soch Award. The hosts found themselves in absolute tatters having lost three wickets in a space of five overs and 27 runs on the board. Kane Williamson and Shikhar Dhawan, two of their stalwarts, was pinned by Ankit Rajpoot. The onus was on Shakib and Manish to bail Sunrisers Hyderabad out and shepherd them to some sort of respectability.

The piece of brilliance by Manish Pandey

Shakib’s intentions were clear, which almost got rid of him in the second ball. In the sixth over, Barinder Sran dished out a short and wide delivery, which deserved to be treated with disdain. Shakib flashed at the leather with all his might, however, was cramped for room. As a result, the ball found the outside-edge of his willow, rather than the meat of the bat.

The pitch had a fair amount of bounce, which ensured that the ball traced into the palms of the third-man fielder, who pouched it. The bowler erupted in joy as Shakib is indeed a huge scalp, bearing in mind the damage he can do once he gets set. However, Manish Pandey sensed something fishy and ran up to the umpire to check the legitimacy of the delivery.

Replays showed that Sran’s front foot breached the bowling crease by a fair margin. Subsequently, Shakib got a reprieve. The left-handed batsman not only added 28 crucial runs thereafter, but also carved a partnership of 52 runs off 53 balls with Pandey. It helped the Sunrisers post a competitive score on the board for SRH, which eventually turned out to be a bridge too far for Kings XI Punjab.

Here is the video of the same

A post shared by Sumit (@7as.sumit) on Apr 26, 2018 at 8:09am PDT

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