Danish Kaneria Takes A Random Shot At Hardik Pandya

India’s T20 World Cup campaign has been a disaster thus far, with back-to-back defeats to Pakistan and New Zealand. The squad has received criticism from all corners of the globe. Now, it seems that former Pakistan spinner Danish Kaneria has joined the list. Kaneria chastised the lads in Blue for their poor cricket performance and also commented on Hardik Pandya’s health and condition.

Kaneria feels that India lacks wicket-taking alternatives. He further went on to add that Pandya is unable of bringing any magic to the field and is playing poor live cricket. He feels that a half-fit Pandya is useless to the team since he is deficient in both areas. Furthermore, India bowled him against New Zealand just to demonstrate to the world that he can roll his arm, despite not having any success.

The former spinner questioned why the Indian management did not go with T20 special bowler Yuzvendra Chahal, who had performed well in IPL 2021. Rahul Chahar is also warming seats, which did not sit well with Kaneria. India failed to take a wicket against the men in green, while Bumrah struck twice against Kane Williamson and his team.

There has been a lot of criticism for Virat Kohli and his squad selection already. Not a lot of people are pleased with some of the top-performing players being left out already. They have expressed their displeasure regarding the same already. Keeping that in mind, India will be hoping to shine and get the job done from their end after beating Afghanistan in the last couple of games.

Danish Kaneria believes India should have kept Yuzvendra Chahal for the T20 World Cup, which is where they rather lost the plot

“When you play a piecemeal player like Hardik Pandya, you won’t get much out of him. You bowled him a couple overs just to show the world. You left Yuzvendra Chahal out of the team. Rahul Chahar has taken a seat on the bench. Are you going to force him to sell eggs from the bench?” Kaneria said on his YouTube programme, as he talked about the various aspects involving India in the T20 World Cup.

“If you look at every team in the World Cup, there are innumerable leg-spinners competing at every location, including Wanindu Hasaranga, Adil Rashid, Rashid Khan, and Shadab Khan. Hasaranga took three wickets against England only yesterday, and leggies are raking up scalps. However, if Rahul Chahar does not inspire confidence, you should have retained Chahal,” he continued.

India’s next game will be against Scotland on the 5th of November, 2021, at the Dubai international stadium. They will want to win by a huge margin once again.

What next for Team India with regards to the T20 World Cup, can they still make it to the semis?

Team India can’t have a bad game anymore. They need to win all their games right till the end if they want to keep their hopes of qualifying for the semis alive. With that being said, Virat Kohli and co. will have a daunting task in hand and their qualification for the next round will also depend on the “luck factor”, with other results playing a part.

The fans will be hoping that things fall in place and everything works out for the Asian side. However, it will not be easy to go through to the semis with the level of competition within the group. Hardik Pandya and co. have stepped up but the job is far from done.

The team played some really positive cricket against Afghanistan, though it was missing in the games that really mattered. With that being said, the 66-run win over their Asian rivals does put India in a better place. There is some chance that they can go through now, if the results fall in their favour.

Despite that, it will not be easy at all, as Afghanistan needs to beat New Zealand for that to happen as well. This would seem like a very tough scenario and the teams would really have to do things perfectly for India to go through. It is not impossible though the chances are really less and whether it actually happens or not, only time will tell.