‘Ten times out of ten you would have gone with Chahal’: Uthappa and Mukund query Pandya’s captaincy

Former India cricketers Robin Uthappa and Abhinav Mukund has known as Hardik Pandya’s captaincy “baffling” after his choice to return to Arshdeep Singh and never Yuzvendra Chahal within the 18th over.

Chasing 153 for victory, the hosts surpassed the entire in 18.5 overs with simply two wickets in hand. Tilak Varma (51 runs, 41b, 5×4, 1×6) emerged India’s high scorer whereas the in-form Nicholas Pooran led the West Indies’ scoring charts with 67 runs (40b, 6×4, 4×6).

India had their moments to grab again the initiative, particularly after spinner Yuzvendra Chahal’s sixteenth over resulted within the fall of three wickets. Chahal was getting ready to return on and bowl the 18th over as properly with the hosts nonetheless needing 21 runs for victory. But, surprisingly pacer Arshdeep Singh was handed the ball and he ended up making a gift of 9 runs.

“Ten times out of ten you would have gone with Chahal and tried to close out the game there, especially with Alzarri Joseph in there. I understand that the left-hander is still there, but you’ve got Hetmyer out in the previous over bowling a full one and you have the bigger boundary to deal with,” Mukund mentioned on JioCinema.

“I used to be a bit baffled by the choice to return to Arshdeep as a result of he’s your strike bowler, your lead bowler.

“If you wanted to bowl him, you could bowl him in the 19th over, left Mukesh the last over, or even brought Arshdeep for the final over depending on the number of runs required.”

Uthappa additionally echoed Mukund’s views and mentioned: “I’ve one expression – one Gen-Z expression for this second – ‘pooof’ and never in a pleasant approach.

“I am just mind-blown by how when a guy gets you three wickets in an over essentially you don’t bring him back for another one and kind of close the game completely.”

“The likes of Alzarri Joseph are not going to contend with the experience and class of a Yuzi Chahal. He knows how to bowl to these lower-order batsmen, he know how to get them out. And Akeal Hosein is not gonna take him on, not at that point with three overs to go. He would have backed himself with two overs to go perhaps, not three overs to go. So, you knew there was an error in judgement there,” he mentioned.