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Manish Pandey expresses dejection about being replaced by Sanju Samson


image-latnfngmSanju Samson has so far only warmed the bench in New Zealand [Source: Twitter]


Manish Pandey is no stranger to Indian cricket, he was a regular in ODI cricket ranging from 2016-17. The batter has played 29 ODIs and 39 T20Is. Eventually, Pandey lost his place in the squad in the midst of the revolution of T20 cricket. He last played for India in 2021 in an ODI against Sri Lanka. 

As Sanju Samson, Suryakumar Yadav and Shreyas Iyer rose to the precipice, Pandey started blurring out with the background. The batter has recently talked about how it felt to be replaced in the squad by Samson. Stating that he understood that Samson had to be tried out. 


Pandey clears the air


"See obviously, individually I would feel a little sad about it. But I am sure, whatever calls the Indian team was taking or whoever was playing a certain number of games, I was happy for them. Sanju was batting well, so I thought he should have now gotten games and he did. So no hard feelings there. But on a personal front, I would obviously want to play a lot more games and prove myself at the highest level. But unfortunately, that didn’t happen. Maybe see how it goes from here on,"

"I have been through that situation even with the Indian team. Because there were a lot of times where I have not played a lot of games and I have been sitting out. You actually feel a little sad about it, but it is all in the spirit of the game where the team requires something and then you have to abide by that. So I have been in these kinds of situations before and I think I should not be letting all these things affect me which will eventually affect my game. So I just want to be in the present. If I get an opportunity, I want to play and score well and see how it goes from there,"



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