Mumbai Indians captain Hardik Pandya played a disastrous innings of 24 runs in 20 balls when chasing a record target of 278 runs against SRH. And he got trolled for his poor knock.
MI and SRH played out a high-scoring encounter in Hyderabad on Wednesday night. Even though SRH piled up 277 runs – the highest-ever total in IPL history, breaking the record set by RCB of 263 runs in 2013 – Mumbai Indians remained well and truly alive in the chase and were up to the required run rate around the 14th over mark before it slipped too far away from them.
MI were 150/3 in 10.1 overs when Hardik Pandya walked in to bat at number 5. He started off well with a couple of big hits, but slowed down after that and couldn’t time well. Hardik and Tilak Varma, who cracked 64 runs in 34 balls, had a partnership of 32 (22) in which Pandya scored 19 (13), and could be considered the phase where MI really lost the chase.
With Tim David at the other end, Hardik Pandya scored 5 more runs taking 7 balls before getting out to Jaydev Unadkat. Hardik got out after being set and taking up plenty of balls, thus leaving Tim David, who clobbered 42 runs off 22 balls, too much to do. Eventually, MI lost by 31 runs, which is still less than the margin that had been expected when SRH amassed 277.
Hardik, already in the firing line of fans, got trolled badly on Twitter.
SRH vs MI: Fans Troll Hardik Pandya For His Horrible Knock Of 24 (20) While Chasing 278
After the loss, Pandya said, “Wicket was good, 277 no matter how bad or good you bowl, if the opposition has to score that much, they have batted well. They (the bowlers) were good, it was tough out there, almost 500 runs were scored and the wicket was helping the batters, we could have done a few things here and there, but having said that, we have a young bowling attack and we will learn. If the ball goes this many times into the crowd, you will need time to get the overs done. Everyone (the batters) looked good and it is just a matter of time before we put things right.”
