Steve Smith joins forces to slam Hardik Pandya for the underuse of Jasprit Bumrah

Australia batter Steve Smith, who is currently on commentary duty with Star Sports for the ongoing IPL edition, joined forces to criticize Mumbai Indians captain Hardik Pandya. Smith slammed Pandya on the context of underusing Mumbai’s frontline pacer Jasprit Bumrah. He had the lowest economy rate last night during Sunrisers Hyderabad’s carnage with the bat in the 1st innings which eventually saw them post the highest-ever IPL total.

Jasprit Bumrah was allowed to bowl only one over in the powerplay by MI skipper Hardik Pandya and that was the first of many mistakes he made last night. On a night when it seemed SRH batters could not have done anything wrong, a bowler like Bumrah was needed to force the opposing batters to make a mistake and give their wickets.

However, Pandya chose to go with MI’s most in-experienced bowlers – Gerald Coetzee and Kwena Maphaka who conceded more than 10 runs per over. Anything that the SRH batters were touching was turning into gold and in those situations, someone like Jasprit Bumrah who is a proven wicket-taker in any situation has to bowl out all 4 overs before the 10th over if required.

Steve Smith says he would have bowled Jasprit Bumrah out by the 15th over if he was MI’s captain

After watching the drama and absolute carnage unfold at the Rajiv Gandhi stadium last night, Steve Smith said that Hardik Pandya missed a trick in the match. The former Aussie captain believes that bringing Jasprit Bumrah so late in the 13th over of the match when SRH were high on momentum was a huge mistake and that it did not tread that well.

Steve Smith, who has played 103 IPL matches for Pune, Delhi, and Rajasthan, stated that Jasprit Bumrah should have come in way too early than Pandya did. That if Mumbai needed wickets on a flurry then Bumrah has to bowl as much as he can in the initial phase and that if Steve was the captain, he would bowled Bumrah out by the 15th-16th over.

“I think they missed a trick in bringing Bumrah back in the 13th over. When the ball’s going around like that, you’ve just got to bring your best bowler back earlier than you would’ve liked. It’s just about adapting on the go. I would’ve bowled Bumrah out by the 15-16th over to try to get some wickets.” – Smith said via Star Sports.

Smith says he was “perplexed” with Hardik Pandya’s decision

Steve Smith went on to highlight that claiming wickets in the initial phase would have not just put pressure back on SRH but also would have stopped the run flow. The right-hand batter stated that Jasprit Bumrah anyway went for runs at the backend and if Mumbai had taken the risk by getting him on the attack early on then SRH could not have scored 277.

Smith concluded by saying that he was perplexed by the decision of Hardik Pandya to have an over from Bumrah only once until the 13th over of the 1st innings.

“Once you get some wickets, you slow the run-rate down anyway. If these guys are batting at the end, it doesn’t matter who is bowling. We saw that in the last two overs where he still got smacked. So if he came back earlier and took some risks, things could have been really different.”

“They got 277, they could’ve been down to 250 and they might’ve chased those down. I was just perplexed that Bumrah had bowled just 1 over up until the 13th over.” – Steve Smith concluded.