A clinical effort from India in the third fixture of the ongoing five-match T20I series on Tuesday, August 8 against the West Indies enabled them to make a remarkable comeback as the scoreline now reads 2-1 with two games to play. However, the victory at the Providence Stadium in Guyana seems to have brought more criticism than praise for India’s skipper for the series – Hardik Pandya.
Hardik has been copping plenty of flak from netizens on the micro-blogging site Twitter for his match-winning six that came in the 18th over of India’s innings. Chasing 160 to win the clash, India just required six off the last three overs when Hardik’s counterpart Rovman Powell came to bowl the 18th over.
The India skipper was batting alongside Tilak Varma, who had kept a calm head throughout the chase and brought India to the brink of a victory and keep the series alive. Tilak was batting at an individual score of 47 before Powell ran in to bowl the first ball of the over, with Hardik on strike.
The batting pair dealt in singles and Hardik found himself at the striker’s end yet again on the penultimate delivery of the over and with India just needing two runs to register a victory. Interestingly, Tilak was batting on 49 and just needed a run to score his maiden half-century for India. However, the 29-year-old deposited a slower ball from Powell that landed in his arc and the act left Tilak stranded on 49.
Watch Hardik’s match-winning six:
The 20-year-old southpaw had two opportunities in the over to scale the milestone but he failed to get them away and could only score two runs. He got a slower ball outside off on the second delivery of the over and managed to just push it in the covers for a run. The fourth delivery of the over also presented a chance to Tilak but he could only afford a single off it as a drive from him went extremely close to his leg stump and he scampered for a single.
Hardik’s act infuriated netizens on several social media platforms especially, Twitter, as people trolled him mercilessly for robbing Tilak of his maiden half-century for India. Here are some of the reactions from Twitter:
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