Sunrisers Hyderabad batsman Manish Pandey on Sunday, April 11, played a fighting knock of 61 runs off 41 balls against the Kolkata Knight Riders.
However, his innings wasn't enough to guide his team to victory. In pursuit of the 188 run target, SRH were restricted to 177 for 5 as KKR won the game by 10 runs.
Virender Sehwag -- the only Indian to score two triple Test tons -- explained why Pandey could not guide his team to victory at the M A Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai.
Pandey, who came to bat at No 3, struck well as long as he accompanied Jonny Bairstow (55) in match 3 of IPL 2021.
After Bairstow was dismissed, Pandey seemed to struggle. The asking rate went up in the death overs but Pandey couldn't hit a boundary in the last six overs, except for the six he smashed off the last ball.
Sehwag felt Pandey was well settled, but couldn't find the right ball to hit.
'He already had faced the pressure and was set. Had he taken the initiative to smash a few boundaries, SRH wouldn't have lost the game by 10 runs,' Sehwag told Cricbuzz.
'It happens sometimes that you are a set batsman but you don't get the balls to hit. I think the same thing had happened with Manish Pandey. He didn't get any ball in his radar and hence, he couldn't hit a six,' Sehwag added.
Sehwag also tweeted about teams having 'stat padding batsmen', saying such teams would struggle in the IPL.
