IPL 2018: Top expensive buys who haven't proved their worth

#2 Manish Pandey

Over the past two years, Sunrisers Hyderabad relied heavily on Shikhar Dhawan, David Warner and Kane Williamson to score the bulk of the runs. They decided to address that at the auction this year and went all-out to secure the services of Manish Pandey. They finally did at ₹11 crore, making him the costliest batsman along with Karnataka teammate KL Rahul. Both the batsmen have gone on completely different paths though. While Rahul has led the charge for his team, Pandey has surrendered meekly.

With talismanic skipper David Warner ruled out of the IPL, the onus was on Pandey to step up in his absence. In 5 innings, he has scored just a single half-century, which itself was a puzzling knock where he showed almost no intent to chase down a stiff target. Apart from that, he has scored just 31 runs in 4 innings. It's not like Pandey has struggled to score runs, it's just that he's found different ways to get himself out. Batting at no.3 or no.4, Pandey should be batting more responsibly.

Sunrisers have made a good start to their campaign and have fortunately not felt the effect of Pandey's poor form. However, if they are to go deep into the tournament, they know that the runs will have to start coming from Pandey's bat.