In the World Cup, will Hardik Pandya find himself on the crest or in the trough of his rollercoaster career? The Pandya situation is no doubt being handled with utmost care in the Team India camp right now.Coach Rahul Dravid and captain Rohit Sharma will be eager to get the best out of one of India’s most important T20 contributors and the only true seam-bowling allrounder in the ranks.
Pandya is also vice-captain of the team, another appointment dogged by controversy and mired in innuendo, like everything else with the cricketer lately. It’s not Pandya’s credentials that are under the scanner. He has been retained in Grade A in the BCCI‘s central contracts list in spite of recurring injuries since 2018. Having played only in the IPL following an ankle injury during the ODI World Cup late last year, the entire focus should have been on the cricketer’s quest to regain peak fitness in time for the big one.
Instead, his world seems to be unravelling around him.
Both Pandya’s private life and public persona have come under such intense scrutiny in recent times that often, from the outside, it has seemed things are at breaking point. It’s a curious turn of events for one of the most colourful, exciting and emotional cricketers India has ever produced, one who possesses both rare skill and naked ambition.
Since he burst on to the scene for Mumbai Indians in 2015, Pandya has not shied away from showcasing the kind of swagger that can attract the wrong kind of attention. People may scoff at his extravagant ways but having seen some real hard times growing up, Pandya is entitled to live it up if he wants to. He has chosen to be all flash and glitter. He has lived life on his terms.
At times that has got him into trouble too, like when he was suspended for some ill-conceived comments on a TV talk show. This recent implosion in the Mumbai Indians camp and the hostility of spectators, however, has been particularly unsettling to watch. Fans across venues have raged against Pandya and rained slurs on him. They seemed incensed by Pandya’s switch from Gujarat Titans and the dethroning of the more popular Rohit Sharma as Mumbai Indians captain.
Then again, the trigger may well be Hardik’s loud public persona.
Either way you see it, this public castigation of Pandya across stadiums has showcased the worst of the IPL’s oddball fan-loyalties at play.
It could also be the management’s choice to overlook the optics altogether. CSK, after all, underwent a similar transition and there wasn’t a peep from the crowds. Cricketers routinely switch club loyalties in the auction process and there is no outcry. To the fans, the MI captaincy swap may have seemed like a midnight coup.
The appointment as MI captain seemed plagued with trouble from the start. The likes of Suryakumar Yadav and Jasprit Bumrah – among four players from the MI setup in the World Cup squad – have seemingly, in cryptic social-media posts, expressed displeasure at being overlooked. It seemed even Rohit Sharma, having been named India’s captain for the T20 World Cup in a surprise return to the old guard, had been caught unawares.
Many ex-cricketers thought Pandya was faking and blustering his way through the doomed campaign, that his leadership style was muddled. Kevin Pietersen said Pandya was “smiling too much” and “trying to act like he’s happy” when “everything away from the game was affecting him so much”. Graeme Smith said MI have been a “very confused team”.
Pandya may have thought he was the most hated Indian cricketer ever. There may have been moments when he lost direction.
After a loss to CSK, Pandya alluded to Dhoni’s presence in the opposition and said, “There’s a man behind the stumps who tells them what’s working.” This spurred Adam Gilchrist to say, “That line about Dhoni is interesting. It tells that maybe Pandya is feeling a bit of a lone wolf.”
AB de Villiers said he loved Pandya but “his captaincy style is quite bravado. It’s ego-driven, chest out”.
Perhaps Pandya was too abrasive for Mumbai Indians, even though the style may have worked at Gujarat Titans. The public criticism of Tilak Varma for not taking on DC’s Axar Patel and whispers of an alleged dressing room showdown did not help either. MI coach Mark Boucher admitted in the end that all the happenings may have “clouded” Pandya.
All chief selector Ajit Agarkar would say about Pandya’s selection is, “The good part we have looked at is that he has got through all the games so far for MI.”
That, however, doesn’t answer the question – is Pandya in the best frame of mind to perform at his peak in a tournament like this? The relentless antagonism from spectators also spurred an ongoing social-media trial that puts him under immense pressure to perform in the World Cup.
In one of his rare moments of candour, Pandya said, “We’ve seen better days but seen worse days as well. I don’t think these things surprise me anymore.”
If there’s one cricketer who swears by his resilience, it’s Hardik Pandya. His first post after joining the India squad in the US contained the words: “On national duty.”
Remember, India have had alleged flare-ups between captain and vice-captain in a T20 World Cup before, back in 2009, when Dhoni paraded the whole team in front of the media to quell reports of a rift in the team.
This time, the calming presence of both Rohit and Dravid may serve to erase any lingering bitterness. Team India needs Pandya to step up to win the World Cup. He was, after all, their best performer with the bat in that semifinal defeat to England in Adelaide in 2022.
