Ishwar Pandey’s maiden four-for in T20 was inclusive of his maiden hat-trick in the shortest format of the game. The tall Madhya Pradesh pacer sent Andhra on the back-foot by claiming their top four batsmen upfront.
“I have been playing for about five years and this is my first hat-trick in the T20 format so I am very happy. And when you are contributing to the team’s win it feels even better,” the 26-year old said while speaking about his match-winning effort.
Pandey set the tone by claiming three off three balls with Andhra on 12. Elaborating on the wickets, he said, “I had the first wicket (KS Bharat) caught at point as the batsman flashed at the delivery. The second wicket (DB Prasanth Kumar) was caught in the slips. I bowled an out-swinger and it took the edge which went to the second slip. And the third wicket, I bowled on the stumps and the batsman was clean bowled.”
“This was a red soil wicket and there was a good bounce so the effort was to bowl a good line and since there was a bit of moisture, I benefitted from that. We elected to bowl first after winning the toss in the morning so we could take advantage of the conditions,” he explained.
“It was a good wicket to bowl on. There was good bounce and I didn’t try too hard. My effort was to get the ball to swing and I got everything right and got a hat-trick,” Pandey added.
Discussing the low scoring game where MP too lost their openers early (four for two), Pandey said, “There was help from the wicket for the bowlers, the ball was bouncing well and also swinging, so it wasn’t that easy for the batsmen.”
Speaking about his form in the 2015-16 thus far, Pandey said, “It has been good I have been in good rhythm. I will try to keep it up.”
