Michael Holding Clears the Air on His Harsh Comments for Hardik Pandya

India’s bowling department had been excellent in the third Test against England where the Men in Blue won the game by a massive margin of 203 runs.

Cricket news: Previously the former cricketer was slammed for his comments on the Indian all-rounder

Special commendations will be given to the Indian all-rounder Hardik Pandya, who took five wickets in the first innings, as India bowled out the Brits for 161 runs.

In the second innings, Pandya showed his talent with the bat as he scored a quick-fire half century which helped his team to post a massive target of 521 runs.

Before the third Test began, Pandya was criticised heavily by many critics and pundits because of his poor performance in previous matches.

Among those pundits was former West Indies cricketer turned commentator Michael Holding, who recently clarified his comments saying that he had not criticised Pandya, but has criticised those who compared Pandya to the legendary Kapil Dev.

“Please go back and listen to or read what I have said about Pandya. I was more critical of the people who were telling me he is the next Kapil Dev, not of Pandya himself. I have gone on to say that he is not the man to fill that sort of role as yet, batting at No. 6 and bowling.

“What I am glad also to see is that I read somewhere that he had said he doesn’t want to be known as the new Kapil Dev; he is Hardik Pandya, which is the right attitude,” Holding was quoted as saying in News18.

The England captain Joe Root nicked the very first delivery of Pandya as KL Rahul completed the catch in the slips. From there the all-rounder finished with magnificent figures of 6-1-28-5.

Holding believes the first-ball wicket had convinced the Indian skipper Virat Kohli to give Pandya more overs, which was not the case in the previous two Tests at Edgbaston and Lord’s.

“He (Pandya) only bowled 10 overs in the entire first Test (Edgbaston) and 17 in the entire second Test where the seamers on both teams were making the ball talk and batsmen were struggling. He got no runs in either of the first two Tests as well.

“He bowled a lot more in the third Test and maybe that is down to the fact that he got a wicket with his first delivery, which then convinced his captain to give him more overs than in the first two Tests,” he added.