Mumbai: Hardik Pandya of Mumbai Indian (MI) termed Wednesday night the last seven months the toughest of his life ‘when I didn’t know what to do’, and dedicated the award-winning performance against Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in the IPL-XII game to those who stood by him. Hardik smashed an eight-ball 25 and then picked up three wickets to power MI to a 37-run win over CSK here.
“It feels pretty good to help the team to win and contribute. It’s been seven months that I’ve hardly played games. They weren’t easy and I didn’t know what to do. I’ve just batted and batted. I want to improve my game every day. It’s a fantastic feeling batting like that and helping your team win,” said the all-rounder.
“I was out with injury and then some other controversy (a TV chat show) happened. I want to dedicate this man of the match award to my family and friends, who stood with me in the toughest times. Now my only focus is to play the IPL well and make sure India win the World Cup,” Hardik said at the post-match presentation ceremony.
Meanwhile CSK skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni felt many ‘things went wrong’ for his side.
“We started well, were right on the mark for the first 10-12 overs. Then, a few catches were dropped, a few misfields, the death over bowling wasn’t great. We don’t have bowlers who hit the deck, it was slightly tough on them,” Dhoni stated.
Dhoni also stated that to erase the mistakes his team confident he would prefer a one-on-one meeting with his players. “That is the way we plan things. We have to figure out where to cut off boundaries… a boundary less over could have made a difference to a 10-12 run over or a seven-run over,” he pointed out. “Hopefully we will work things out.”
MI captain Rohit Sharma was delighted with the result. “We don’t want the headache of winning every game at the back-end of the tournament. It becomes very tough. I thought 170 was a fighting total because there was something in the pitch. We always knew we would be in the game, if we could get some early wickets and that is what happened,” Rohit said.
PTI