'You sticking your neck out is irrelevant,' Manjrekar clashes with Bhogle over Uthappa's knock

What’s the story?

Former cricketer turned commentator Sanjay Manjrekar has clashed with noted cricket commentator Harsha Bhogle over the latter’s views on Robin Uthappa’s slow knock against the Mumbai Indians in the last league match of IPL-2019. Uthappa’s knock of 40 runs from 47 balls raised quite a few eyebrows as his team could only churn up 133 runs from their 20 overs.

In case you didn’t know...

Facing the Mumbai Indians in a must-win clash at the Wankhede stadium in order to qualify for the playoffs, Kolkata were beaten fair and square by the home team by a comfortable margin of 9 wickets. Mumbai chased down the target of 134 runs with 23 balls remaining. Robin Uthappa who came in to bat number 3 faced a lot of flak for his sedate knock of 40 runs from 47 balls. Many fans blamed his slow knock for the failure of KKR’s batting line up to put a challenging score on the board.

The heart of the matter

Just after Kolkata’s defeat, Harsha Bhogle tweeted in support of Robin Uthappa saying that everyone has had bad days at the office. He also suggested that mightier players had failed on bigger stages.

KKR paid the price for bringing back Uthappa in the playing XI for no reason at all and on top of that, giving him a crucial batting position. This is about flawed tactics - the controllable- that cost them. You sticking your neck out is irrelevant. https://t.co/JIvoH3gnzG

— Sanjay Manjrekar (@sanjaymanjrekar) May 7, 2019

Manjrekar who is never shy of voicing his opinion, disagreed with Harsha’s views and tweeted that KKR paid the price for bringing back Uthappa into the playing XI and that too in an important batting position.

Ah, Sanjay off his long run! My post was about failing,I know the feeling,and I thought people were being too harsh & personal. He was brought back 2 games earlier. Didn't bat when KKR made 232-2 & batted well at 3 in the key game against Kings where he made 22(14). Felt for him.

— Harsha Bhogle (@bhogleharsha) May 7, 2019

Harsha replied back to Sanjay, saying that his post was about failure of players and that people were being too harsh on Robin Uthappa. Later Harsh made the moment lighter by sharing one more tweet.

What’s next?

With that crushing loss, Kolkata Knight Riders crashed out of this year’s IPL while Mumbai secured the top position in the points table. Mumbai Indians will take on the Chennai Super Kings in the first Qualifier in Chennai on Tuesday, 7th May.

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