India’s stand-in skipper, Hardik Pandya came up with a classy response to former England skipper, Michael Vaughan, who criticized India’s approach in limited-overs cricket, calling them the ‘biggest underperforming’ team in the history of world cricket. Vaughan’s comments came after India suffered an exit from the T20 World Cup 2022 after a demoralizing 10-wicket loss to England in the semi-final.
In his column for Daily Telegraph, Michael Vaughan wrote: “India is the most underperforming white-ball team in history. I am just staggered by how they play T20 cricket for the talent they have. They have the players, but just do not have the right process in place. They have to go for it. Why do they give the opposition bowlers the first five overs to bed in?”
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Among all the participating teams in this T20 World Cup, only UAE had a worse run rate than India in the powerplay. Hardik Pandya was asked about Vaughan’s remarks and the all-rounder asserted that the men in blue don’t need to prove to anyone but there is definite room for improvement.
As per the quotes in Hindustan Times, Hardik Pandya said, “Obviously when you don’t do well, people will have their opinion, which we respect. I understand people have different points of view. Being at the international level, I don’t think we need to prove anything to anyone. It’s a sport, you keep trying to get better, and eventually when the result is supposed to happen it will happen.”
He further added, “There are things we need to work on, going forward we will rectify and work on it. There is a disappointment of the T20 World Cup, but we are professionals. We need to cope with it the way we cope with our success and move forward, look to get better and rectify the mistakes we made.”
Regular captain Rohit Sharma, his deputy KL Rahul, and talisman Virat Kohli have been rested from the New Zealand tour. Many believe that the transition phase of Team India has already begun, especially in the shortest format of the game.
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Talking about the same, Hardik Pandya said, “Main boys are not here but the talent we have… The players who are already here, have been playing for India for one and a half two years now so they have had enough time in international cricket to express themselves. very excited for them, new guys, new bunch, new energy, so it’s gonna be quite exciting.”
