Former Indian off-spinner Harbhajan Singh showered praise on Manish Pandey after Kolkata Knight Riders registered a four-wicket win against Mumbai Indians at Eden Gardens, Kolkata on Wednesday. 

Singh reckons Pandey’s involvement on the field is similar to India’s veteran batter Virat Kohli. Pandey is known to be a live wire on the field and he is a gun fielder.

The experienced batter scored a crucial knock of 45 runs off 33 balls against MI and played a key role in getting his team over the line in the run chase of 148. Thus, he was awarded Player of the Match for his fine performance.

Harbhajan Singh said on Star Sports, “His involvement is exactly like Virat Kohli’s because he is from the same group. You can call it a batch or a gang, it is the same thing. He belongs to that same batch and is just as fit. It felt very good watching him play and he played a very good innings. It is good to see him back playing games, and Manish Pandey has been around since we used to play, maybe even earlier than that. But it is good to see him.”

Singh added that Pandey gave confidence to the entire KKR group despite not being part of the playing XI in the earlier matches.

He added, “He did not lose his belief in himself. He joined the team as a senior player and had to sit out, but he gave confidence to the entire group that there is still a long way to go. Manish Pandey is such a fit player that he saves runs in the fielding, and when it comes to batting, he can score runs for you. It was a very good innings. And Raghuvanshi, their main in-form batter, had to go out today due to a finger injury. So the responsibility came on this player because he is quite senior, and he has done the job very well. I am very happy about it.”

Pandey has scored 3987 runs in 179 IPL matches at an average of 29.53.