IPL 2021: Trevor Bayliss reveals the reason for leaving out Manish Pandey after SRH’s third match

Trevor Bayliss, the Sunrisers Hyderabad’s head coach, has put forth the reasons why Manish Pandey had to warm the benches in the team’s fourth and fifth match of the 2021 Indian Premier League. In the first two games against Kolkata Knight Riders and Royal Challengers Bangalore, he got scores of an unbeaten 61 and 38, but he was criticised for his indifferent strike rate.

Against the Mumbai Indians, he got out after scoring only a couple. The pundits reckoned that Pandey wasn’t able to press the accelerator. Bayliss stated the right-hander had his difficulties while playing on the track at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai.

Bayliss opens up on Manish Pandey’s omission

“Yes, that was certainly the selectors’ choice. It was felt that that wicket (Chepauk) didn’t suit Manish with the ball stopping and spinning. But (we knew) he would come back into the calculations on a wicket like here in Delhi, and he showed tonight what a good player he is.

“Hopefully, from here on in, if the wickets are going to be similar, we know what sort of damaging player he can be,” Bayliss was quoted as saying after the match against the Chennai Super Kings.

Pandey made his way into the eleven in the Sunrisers’ sixth game against CSK on Wednesday, April 28 at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in New Delhi. In the game, he managed to score 61 off 46 balls with five fours and one six at an impressive strike rate of 132.60.

Lungi Ngidi cut short his stay in the middle after Faf du Plessis took a stupendous catch at the boundary. He was also involved in a handy partnership of 106 runs off 83 balls along with skipper David Warner for the second wicket. Both Warner and Pandey got out in the 18th over itself.

After electing to bat first, the Orange Army scored 171 for the loss of three wickets in their 20 overs. Kane Williamson’s 26 runs off 10 balls also injected impetus. But in the run chase, the Super Kings’ opening batters Ruturaj Gaikwad and Faf du Plessis took the match away from them with a stand of 129 runs in 13 overs.