KKR’s middle-order batsman, Manish Pandey, who is also in contention for the middle-order spot in the Indian team, has made a buzz around himself in recent times. There are some knocks in a batsman’s career which change the game for them. Pandey’s century in IPL was surely the incidence for which he will be remembered for sure.
Manish is the first Indian players to score an IPL century and the Karnataka batsman entered the record books. He also performed well in India’s tour of Zimbabwe in 2015 and proved his mettle at the international arena as well. One also can’t forget in match-winning century against Australia in the January 2016.
Pandey has also scored a beautiful half-century against Mumbai Indian s for KKR on Sunday, unfortunately, it wasn’t enough for his team to win the match. In the match against Punjab, he made a brilliant contribution to take his team home.
The right-hand batsman was born in a smal town of Nainital, but later on came to Bangalore at the age of 15 with his family. His father was with The Indian Army and when father got a transfer to Rajasthan, Manish decided to stay back to pursue his cricketing career.
Manish started playing cricket when he was studying in the third standard. His coach was Mr. Satish has trained him from childhood till he joined KSCA.
In his childhood days, Pandey has almost decided to join The Army if a career in cricket did not materialize. He technically started his cricketing journey by representing Mysore in a state level tournament. But his first big chance was when he was chosen to feature in India Under19 team in the 2008 World Cup held in Malaysia.
Pandey earned some popularity when he became the first Indian player to score an IPL century. He played an innings of 114* off 73 balls against Deccan Chargers to help Bangalore into the semi-finals of the 2009 tournament.
The 2009-10 season of Ranji trophy, Pandey proved that his IPL exploits were no flash in the pan. He was the highest run-scorer in that season with 882 runs under his belt which included four 100s and five 50s. He almost took Karnataka to victory over Mumbai in the finals of the Ranji Trophy. However, his brilliant innings of 144 in the fourth innings was not enough as Karnataka fell short by 6 runs.
Pandey shuffled through a bunch of IPl teams as for the first three editions he played for Royal Challengers Bangalore. But in 2011, he was picked by Pune Warriors prior to IPL 2011. After performing consistently in the domestic circuit in the 2013-14 season as he was the highest run-scorer for Karnataka in the Ranji Trophy that year. His form has earned him a contract from IPL franchise KKR in the 2014 auction.
Manish has always been a big match player as in the finals of IPL 7, he played an innings of 94 against KXIP, which helped KKR to clinch the title. He helped his team to chase down the huge total of 200.
The flamboyant batsman made his international debut during India’s tour to Zimbabwe in 2015. He played an innings of 71 runs and built a solid 44 run partnership with Kedar Jadhav after joining him when India were 82 for 4.
Pandey idolizes Rahul Dravid as a batsman and he also acknowledged that he was inspired by the senior batsman. However, Pandey’s batting style is indifferent from his idol. Manish plays for the Mysuru Warriors in the Karnataka Premier League and led them to their title win in the 2014 season.
