IPL 2021: 'Hardik Pandya is getting closer to playing,' says Shane Bond

Mumbai Indians bowling coach Shane Bond has said that the franchise is also looking at the needs of Team India when managing the workload of allrounder Hardik PandyaHardik Pandya has not played the games against Chennai Super Kings CSK and Kolkata Knight Riders KKR in the ongoing Indian Premier League IPL 2021 and it is not known when the allrounder will make a comebackHardik is training well He trained today Thursday and he is getting closer to playing We are balancing the needs of our team along with the needs of Team India as well This franchise looks after its players We are hopeful that Hardik Pandya will be back for the next match he trained well on Thursday said Bond during a postmatch virtual press conferenceIt is not a hard directive you have a duty towards the players You have to look after them like anything you have to balance everything and you have to balance what the player wants One thing our franchise does is look after our players There is no point in rushing him back you do not want him to get injured and miss rest of the tournament when we have a chance to win it he addedRahul Tripathi and Venkatesh Iyer played knocks of 74 and 53 respectively as Kolkata Knight Riders KKR defeated Mumbai Indians by seven wickets here at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium on Thursday With this win KKR has risen to the fourth spot in the points table while Mumbai Indians has slipped to the sixth positionIt is a fair comment When you look at our team we are probably operating around 80 per cent We controlled the first six overs and we got into a position to further control the game against KKR but as you rightly said that the middleorder has not got going We talk about someone kicking through we have not been able to do that and once again we found ourselves with a subpar score said Shane Bond while replying to an ANI queryThe one thing we do know is that we have got a quality batting lineup There are good surfaces so I am hoping that the team can kick in because we need to quickly start winning some games he addedEarlier Quinton de Kocks 55run knock helped Mumbai Indians post 1556 against KKR in the allotted twenty overs For KKR Prasidh Krishna and Lockie Ferguson scalped two wickets eachI felt it was a 175 wicket and we were well short of the score KKR bowled brilliantly They showed discipline and then came out and really put us under pressure with the bat They deserved to win said BondMumbai Indians will next lock horns against Royal Challengers Bangalore RCB on SundayCheck out all the latest news and updates on IPL 2021This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliabilitsy and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever