Mumbai: There is a lot riding on Manish Pandey, the player inducted into the Indian squad for the rest of the tournament a day before the all-important semi-final clash against West Indies in the World T20.
Pandey replaces Yuvraj Singh who was ruled out of the team due to an ankle injury he sustained during the clash against Australia on Wednesday. Pandey has big shoes to fill and comes into the side at a very crucial stage of the tournament.
No doubt then, there will be apprehensions and concerns whether Manish Pandey is able to handle the pressure and perform. For starters, he is a destructive right-handed middle-order batsman who made his ODI as well as T20I debut in the same tour against Zimbabwe in 2015. He played a match-saving knock of 71 runs in the debut ODI.
Manish was then selected in the Indian ODI squad for the series against Australia in January 2016. In the fifth and last match at the Sydney Cricket Ground, the right-handed batsman once again played a match-winning innings of 104 runs and led the team to its solitary victory in the series.
Though he has played only a couple of T20Is, which were against Zimbabwe last year, Manish rides on a vast experience in the Indian Premier League.
In fact, Manish Pandey is the first Indian batsman to hit a century in T20 cricket. Playing for Royal Challengers Bangalore, he smashed 114 runs off just 73 balls against Deccan Chargers in IPL 2009.
The right-handed batsman has played 77 IPL matches and a made a total of 1571 runs that includes one century and five half-centuries.
At the domestic level, Manish has represented Karnataka team at the Under-17 and Under-19 level and has also played for the Under-19 Indian team in the 2008 World Cup.
