‘There is one sitting at home’: Hardik suggests India can ‘look in the Pandya family’ for next all-rounder

 

India vs Australia: To solve India’s all-rounder conundrum till he isn’t allowed to bowl, Hardik suggested that the team can perhaps ‘look in the Pandya family’.

Hardik Pandya, who scored a career-best 90 against Australia in the first ODI at the Sydney Cricket Ground, which unfortunately went in vain, reckons India need to groom their next all-rounder as long as he isn’t cleared to bowl. Pandya, who has refrained from bowling upon his return to competitive cricket following his back surgery last year, is playing in the Indian XI primarily as a batsman, but at the same time, it is denying India a sixth bowling option, the need for which was felt during their average bowling show on Friday.

To solve India’s all-rounder conundrum till he isn’t allowed to bowl, Hardik suggested that the team can perhaps ‘look in the Pandya family’, referring to brother Krunal Pandya, who is an integral part of IPL franchise Mumbai Indians and has played 18 T20Is for India scoring 121 runs and picking up 14 wickets.

“That has been the question always, right? We have to find and maybe make… I have always believed that... even when I came into the circuit, I was not always the all-rounder which I wanted to be. But with time I groomed myself and became that bowling option. I worked on my bowling.”

India’s bowlers had a forgettable outing as Australia hammered them to score 374/6, their highest ODI total against India. While Jasprit Bumrah leaked 73 runs, pacer Navdeep Saini and leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal conceded a combined 172 runs in 20 overs. Mohammed Shami was the pick finishing with 3/59 but most of India’s bowlers had no answer to Aaron Finch and Steve Smith’s century and Glenn Maxwell’s cameo of 19-ball 45.

“Yeah, it is always going to be difficult when you go with five bowlers. When someone is having an off day you don’t have someone to fulfil the quota. More than injury, the sixth bowler’s role is when someone among the five bowlers is having a bad day. I think it is going to be… maybe we will have to make, maybe we will have to find someone who has already played India, and groom them and find a way to make them play,” Pandya said.