Australia defeated India by 66 runs in their first ODI at the Sydney Cricket Ground. For Australia, skipper Aaron Finch and Steve Smith scored spectacular centuries while Adam Jampa took four wickets. After losing the bowling, the Indian batsmen could not do anything special. Shikhar Dhawan has scored 74 runs while Hardik Pandya has scored 90 runs. There has been much debate over the position of Hardik Pandya and Manish Pandey in the eleven matches before the ODI series begins, with many experienced cricketers favoring Manish Pandey’s sixth place batting. Meanwhile, Gautam Gambhir has also commented on this.
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In a video by ESPN Cricinfo, Gambhir said, “I think it has a lot to do with the form in the IPL, because if you look at it, Hardik is batting at sixth and Manish Pandey at third. If you push Pandey to sixth place, you have to drop a player who has shown good form in this number in IPL and it is not perfect. The right question is whether he will fit in as a batsman in 50 overs, but his latest form gave him a chance to play in sixth place.
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Gambhir said that Pandya should be ranked sixth because he needs a big hitter and a match finisher and Manish Pandey is a middle-order batsman whose competition is from batsmen like Shreyas Iyer and KL Rahul. He said, ‘It’s also a matter of the batting position. If Shreyas Iyer is not doing well, you can bat a batsman like Manish Pandey at number four, but if you come in sixth, I want to go with Hardik Pandya.
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