West Indies vs India 2023

'Kab tak young bol bolke kaam chalate rahoge' - Fans react as Hardik Pandya backs 'young' Indian Team after 4-run loss to West Indies in 1st T20I

India captain Hardik Pandya backed the 'young' Indian Team after their four-run loss to West Indies in the first T20I.

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Hardik Pandya (Source: Twitter)

Hardik Pandya Hardik Pandya (Source: Twitter)

After losing the Test and ODI series miserably, West Indies kicked off the T20I series on a positive note with a four-run win against India at the Brian Lara Stadium in Trinidad on Thursday, August 3. Windies defended a modest total of 149 on a track that was not easy to bat on and took a 1-0 lead in the five-match series. However, India skipper Hardik Pandya backed his side saying that young players are bound to make mistakes.

The Men in Blue fielded a young Indian team as the management decided to rest senior players including Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja. The move comes in the context of maintaining the workload of key players ahead of upcoming major 50-over tournaments like the Asia Cup and World Cup. Pandya remarked that the young team will make mistakes, which will help them progress in the future.

However, apart from debutants Tilak Varma and Mukesh Kumar, the rest of the players are Indian Premier League (IPL) stars and have decent international experience, which invited criticism on social media against Pandya's statement. Notably, it was the confident knock of Mumbai Indians (MI) middle order batter Varma that saved India from further embarrassment.

"We were right in the chase and quite comfortable there. We made some errors which costed us the game which is fine. A young team will make mistakes. It will also help us to improve in the future. We will grow together. Throughout the game, we were in control of the game which was the positive in this game. Good four games coming ahead," Pandya said.

We lost a couple of wickets, that halted our chase: Pandya

Batting first, the hosts posted a respectable total on the back of Nicholas Pooran's 34-ball 41 and captain Rovman Powell's 32-ball 48. Chasing 150, the visitors lost both openers, Ishan Kishan and Shubman Gill, cheaply. Varma showed intent right from the start and forged a 39-run partnership with Suryakumar Yadav. However, SKY failed to display his T20 heroics this time, but his MI teammate smashed 39 off 22 balls in his maiden international outing.

India was in big danger when Varma was dismissed with the score at 77-4 in 11 overs. The World No. 1 ranked T20 side then kept on losing wickets at regular intervals to finish four runs short. Speaking at the post-match presentation ceremony, Pandya said that losing too many wickets hampered their run chase.

"In T20 cricket, if you lose wickets, it becomes difficult to chase down any total, that's exactly what happened. A couple of hits can change the momentum towards you. When we lost a couple of wickets, that halted our chase," the all-rounder said.

Here's how fans reacted to Hardik Pandya's statement on India's loss to West Indies in the first T20I: 

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