BAT, BALL AND BELIEF

Hardik Pandya has become the all-rounder India has always wanted him to be, in time for the T20 World Cup, and for other challenges ahead

- NEERU BHATIA

THE INDIAN TEAM managements, of today and the past, have always been looking for a unicorn, or something seemingly as rare—a guy who could bowl a full quota of overs and single-handedly win a game with the bat. It seemed for a while that Hardik Pandya was the answer. His entry into the white-ball teams in 2016 lent balance to the side, and he looked set for a long stay. Injuries, however, slowed him down to a trot. He carried a bad back for a while and eventually underwent surgery in October 2019. He only returned in late 2020, but it was not an ideal comeback; he was not bowling regularly and was essentially playing as a batter.

But then IPL 2022 happened, and he was stampeding. Pandya captained the newly minted Gujarat Titans to the trophy, contributing with both bat and ball. On the back of that performance, he returned to the Indian team in the shorter formats, now as a full all-rounder. And not only was he bowling all his overs, he was doing so with pace, often touching 140kmph.

On August 28, after hitting the winning runs against Pakistan in a tight Asia Cup match, Pandya put out a tweet—it showed him being carried off the field on a stretcher in the 2018 Asia Cup, and also him with his bat held high in the just-concluded tie. It was captioned: “The comeback is greater than the setback.”

Said former India batter Sanjay Manjrekar: “Everything about him currently is unreal. His bowling returns are unreal, [but] you get that with others as well. But his ability to keep calm and get runs under pressure [is unreal].”