The Indian cricketer Hardik Pandya is on cloud nine at present not only because his team Gujarat Titans won the IPL 2022 under his leadership but also for the fact that he has answered all his critics with his performance in a big manner. Gujarat Titans is one of the two new IPL teams and it has certainly carved its name with golden words in the history of the IPL by winning the title in its debut season.
Hardik Pandya has been targeted by many in the recent past because of his fitness issues and his inability to play as an all-rounder but in the IPL 2022, he has made an impact in all the three segments of the game – batting, bowling and fielding.
The Gujarat cricketer went through one of the darkest phases of his life after the controversial episode of chat show Koffee with Karan was aired in which Pandya appeared with his friend KL Rahul. They both got suspended by the Board of Control for Cricket in India because of the derogatory remarks made by them against women. Pandya and Rahul were in Australia at that time for playing the ODI series but they were suspended and sent back to the country by the BCCI.
Recently, Hardik Pandya’s childhood coach Jitender Singh talked about that phase and revealed that Hardik Pandya didn’t sleep the whole night after getting suspended because he was very frustrated. Jitender Singh further said that he talked to Pandya and told him not to take tension because whatever happened had happened and there was no point in worrying about it. Singh further told his student that he would soon play for the country again and asked him to come to Reliance Stadium the next day as he booked the badminton court for them to play.
According to Jitender Singh, he wanted to instill the joy of playing in him once again and as he sweated, he got freed and this made Pandya realize that he is a sportsperson and this is what he is made for, not for the talk shows.
Hardik Pandya led his team Gujarat Titans from the front in the whole tournament and in the finals, he was also adjudged as the Player of the Match for his all-round performance. He took 3 important wickets of RR – Jos Buttler, Sanju Samson and Shimron Hetymer and then he also scored useful 34 runs for which he played 30 balls and his innings included 3 fours & 1 six.
As per Jitender Singh, Hardik Pandya promised him that he would not get to hear any negative stuff about the cricketer after the controversy and the coach felt proud to say that Hardik kept his promise, adding that his father must have been proud of him after the historic win.
Though the BCCI has appointed KL Rahul as the skipper of team India for the South African series in the absence of Rohit Sharma, many feel that Hardik Pandya has put forward a strong case for leading the national team by making GT win the IPL 2022. What do you think about it?