Srinagar: Former India cricketers Sunil Gavaskar and Virender Sehwag have lashed out at Gujarat Titans captain Hardik Pandya for disturbing pacer Mohit Sharma during IPL 2023 final over vs CSK.
On Monday, Mohit Sharma was set to join elite list of winning title for his side after having bowled brilliant four balls while defending 13 runs in the last over. But all changed in a moment of brilliance from batter Ravindra Jadeja as CSK cruised to a five-wicket win and earn their fifth IPL title.
There seemed a clarity in Mohit’s execution against CSK in that over and looked confident in his approach as well. Yet in the two most important deliveries he lost his focus as Jadeja smacked them for a six over long-on and four past short fine leg respectively as CSK chased down the revised target.
Speaking to India Today, Sunil Gavaskar fumed at Hardik for distracting Mohit in the last two balls.
“He bowled that first 3-4 deliveries absolutely brilliantly. Then for some strange reason some water was sent to him, in the middle of an over. Then Hardik came and spoke to him. When the bowler is in that rhythm and he is mentally also there, nobody should have said anything to him. Nothing at all. From a distance just say well bowled. Going to him, talking to him, that wasn’t the right thing to do. Suddenly Mohit was looking here and there,” he said.
Sehwag, in conversation with Cricbuzz, spoke on the same lines saying that Hardik’s act “disturbed” Mohit, causing him to err in his line and length in the last two balls.
“When some is bowling well and is delivering with yorkers, why will you go and have a word with him? He knows that the batter needs 10 from 2 and that he needs to stick with yorkers. Then why will you waste his time? Had Mohit been hit for runs, then he could have gone and had a word, but when the bowler is doing his job you want to get done with the over quickly. It also could be that the captain might have come with a concern about whether the bowler would want any changes in the field for the last two balls. But still, if I would have been there, I wouldn’t have disturbed him,” he said.