Despite not making it to the playing XI in the first match of season for Kings-XI Punjab, Kashmir star cricketer Manzoor Dar (Pandav) still remained in news as Kings-XI head coach Brad Hodge nicknamed, Manzoor as ‘Baahuballi’ in his twitter post.
Manzoor Pandav is the only J&K cricketer who is featuring in this years’ Indian Premier League (IPL). He was picked in player’s auction by Kings-XI Punjab who played their first match of season on Sunday against Delhi Daredevils. Pandav couldn’t make it to the playing XI of the team on Sunday.
However, before the start of the match, Kings-XI Punjab head coach and former Australian cricketer Brad Hodge posted photograph of the Manzoor Pandav on his official twitter account in which he called Manzoor, ‘Baahuballi’.
“Baahubali loves his pineapple. Pre game fuel Kings-XI Punjab before the opening game of the season,” tweeted Brad Hodge.
Baahubali is popular and one of the highest grossing Indian movie and reportedly Manzoor is being called as ‘Baahubali’ by his Kings-XI Punjab teammates owing to his commanding physique and 6’2 tall structure.
Brad Hodge’s tweet, was re-tweeted by official handle of Kings-XI Punjab as well as official twitter handle of Baahubali movie franchisee. It garnered hundreds of re-tweets and kept Pandav in the limelight throughout the day.
Manzoor joined Kings-XI Punjab pre-tournament coaching camp in Mohali on March 26 and since then he has been part of the team rubbing shoulders with some of the greats of the cricket world.
Brad Hodge in his interview with Kings-XI official site recently had also revealed one of the funniest incidents in the camp that had Kashmir cricketer Manzoor Pandav.
“I think the funniest moment at the camp was when we had our simulation with Manzoor Dar batting. He missed the ball and Akshdeep Nath took off in a flash while Manzoor remained rooted on the other end. Akshdeep had to double-back but still got run out at the other end. So I asked Manzoor, ‘Mate how come you didn’t run?’ and he said he couldn’t run because his new spikes got stuck in the wicket since this was the first time he had worn full spikes! We found that quite amusing and he had a big smile on his face, but Akshdeep Nath of course got run out and may not have been particularly amused,” Hodge was quoted by Kings-XI Punjab website.
Courtesy Greater Kashmir: (http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/sports/brad-hodge-calls-manzoor-pandav-baahuballi/281348.html)