India's batting produced a couple of positives in the form of KL Rahul and Suryakumar Yadav, both of whom scored half-centuries during the T20 World Cup 2022 warm-up tie against Australia in Brisbane. The rest of the batters though disappointed. Captain Rohit Sharma was dismissed for 15 off 14 balls, Virat Kohli scored 19 off 13, Karthik 20 off 14 and Hardik Pandya got 2 off five. However, despite some of their big batters failing to go big, India posted a commendable total of 186/7.
Hardik looked the most troubled and unsettled of the lot. The star India all-rounder, who has been nothing but sensational since his India return, oddly looked out of favour. Of the five deliveries he faced, Pandya was able to put bat to ball on three, including the one in which he got out. The remaining two, Pandya got beaten. In fact, after a couple of wides, the second delivery which Pandya faced was an absolute beauty. Mitchell Starc, coming over the wicket, bowled a full ball shaping away beating Pandya all ends up.
"Mujhe pata hi nahi chala. Kab aaya, kab beat hua. Pata hi nahi chala" (I had no clue about that delivery), the stump mic captured Pandya as saying to Suryakumar Yadav at the non-striker's end. Pandya's innings came to an end when tried to glide Kane Richardson down to third man but got a leading edge for the ball to land straight into the hands of Tim David at second slip. He later came on to bowl but conceded 29 off three overs and went wicketless.
{{/usCountry}}"Mujhe pata hi nahi chala. Kab aaya, kab beat hua. Pata hi nahi chala" (I had no clue about that delivery), the stump mic captured Pandya as saying to Suryakumar Yadav at the non-striker's end. Pandya's innings came to an end when tried to glide Kane Richardson down to third man but got a leading edge for the ball to land straight into the hands of Tim David at second slip. He later came on to bowl but conceded 29 off three overs and went wicketless.
{{/usCountry}}Pandya is India's primary all-rounder, more so in the absence of Ravindra Jadeja. He has been in red-hot form bowling with pace, picking wickets and acing the finisher's role in this Indian team. He has played impactful knocks on more than one occasion since coming back into the Indian set-up, including a match-winning knock against Pakistan in the Asia Cup.
Later, in the first T20I against Australia at home, Pandya starred with the bat, scoring an unbeaten 71, albeit it came in a losing cause. Pandya smacked his runs off just 30 deliveries smashing seven fours and five towering sixes.