Manish Pandey hopes to hit the ground running after playing in South Africa earlier in the month. (Source: AP)
Manish Pandey is in an unfamiliar territory going against Sri Lanka in the ODI series. He has played at No 4 spot throughout his career but now he has to get accustomed to playing fewer overs and possibly coming out and going all guns blazing if required. This isn’t the first series for him in this spot as he had already played at five-down against New Zealand back in India. KL Rahul will hold the No 4 spot, chief selector MSK Prasad had confirmed.
“The game I played in Australia, I batted No.4. That’s where I have batted my entire career. There (at that position) you know how many overs you have to play. But if the team thinks somebody else can perform that role, it is fine. KL (Rahul) played really well in the Tests and I would love to see that repeated in ODIs, too,” said Pandey after the practice session on Friday.
“Batting at No.5 or 6 was a new challenge for me during the home series against New Zealand (last year). It took me some time to get used to the situation with only around 15-odd overs left in the game. You just don’t have the time to settle down in that position. You need to go hard from the first ball. I think, I adapted quite well. Let’s see how it goes this time.”
Pandey comes into the series after playing for India A against South Africa A and Afghanistan A in the tri-nation series which India A won. The conditions will be extremely different but Pandey hopes to get used to things quickly after a short break. “I had a decent break of about five-six days at home. Conditions in Sri Lanka are similar to those in India. We all have played in these conditions before and I am just raring to go,” he said.
He also looked back at the period where he had to stay on the sidelines – not due to form but injury. “It was really tough. Being left out of action when you are not in form doesn’t really hurt that much as when you’re doing well and suddenly get injured. But you have to take that in your stride and that’s the time when you get to learn more about your body and also learn how to work on it,” he said.
“I had about six weeks to work on myself and do a couple of things I had to do. It was good for me in a way but obviously I’m a little disappointed about the time it (injury) happened. But it’s always good to come back. I had a good outing with India ‘A’ and the team did really well, so I’m pretty happy,” he added.
