Kolkata Knight Riders’ (KKR) Manish Pandey entered the rare list of Indian Premier League (IPL) players as soon as he was named in the starting eleven for the game against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) on May 3. Pandey became the third player in IPL history to play at least one game in all 19 IPL seasons. Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s (RCB) Virat Kohli and Mumbai Indians’ (MI) Rohit Sharma are other two players. Chennai Super Kings’ (CSK) MS Dhoni is yet to join the list. There is question mark over his participation in the ongoing edition.
Pandey made his IPL debut for MI against KKR in the inaugural edition of the league. He registered a three-ball duck. His previous appearance was against SRH as well. He managed to score 37 runs from 23 balls, the highest score by a KKR batter in the game.
Pandey’s IPL record
The 36-year-old holds the record for first Indian to score an IPL century. From 175 games, he has 3,942 runs at an average of 29.41 and strike rate of 121.51. He has 22 fifties to his name as well. In last two seasons, he has played four games. In the previous season, he scored 92 runs from three innings at a strike rate of 141.53.
Pandey replaces Ramandeep
On May 3, Pandey replaced Ramandeep Singh in the side.
“We've got two changes. Finn Allen is back in place of Seifert and then Manish Pandey is playing his first game of this season in place of Ramandeep Singh,” skipper Ajinkya Rahane said at the coin toss.
Rahane said that the break has helped KKR who have registered two consecutive wins. Before the SRH game, they were placed eighth on the points table with five points from eight games.
“We wanted to bat first as well. Those breaks so far, it really helped us as a team, re-coupling and thinking about the things which we did right and the improvement point of view. As I said in the last game as well, it's all about winning those moments, small, small moments in this format. Game can change here and there within an over. It's all about being present, being slightly proactive and also winning those moments. I thought hose breaks, so far, definitely helped,” Rahane said.
KKR’s Playing XI -
Ajinkya Rahane(c), Angkrish Raghuvanshi(w), Cameron Green, Rovman Powell, Manish Pandey, Rinku Singh, Anukul Roy, Sunil Narine, Vaibhav Arora, Kartik Tyagi, Varun Chakaravarthy
KKR’s impact subs options -
Finn Allen, Ramandeep Singh, Tejasvi Dahiya, Navdeep Saini, Tim Seifert