Hardik Pandya made his return to competitive cricket in February-March this year after spending months away from action while recovering from an ankle injury he picked during the 2023 ODI World Cup.
Pandya led Mumbai Indians in IPL 2024 but neither the allrounder nor the franchise had a season to remember. MI became the first team to bow out from the playoffs race and finished last in the standings.
On the other hand, Pandya didn’t make a significant impact with the bat or the ball and questions were raised over a few of his captaincy calls as well.
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Pandya will be returning to action at the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup slated to get underway later this week. He’s also the India vice-captain for the competition and Harbhajan Singh reckons that a different Pandya will be on show at the marquee event.
“When he wears that blue jersey, he will be a different Hardik Pandya because we know he can score those runs and take those wickets. I want Hardik to come good as he has gone through a lot and I wish him all the very best to have a very good tournament for India,” Harbhajan told PTI.
“If he has a good tournament, obviously India will have a great chance to go forward,” he added.
Pandya scored 216 runs at a strike-rate of 143.04 and took 11 wickets at an economy of 10.75. Harbhajan though feels that IPL form doesn’t indicate how a player will perform in the future.
“No matter what you have done in your IPL career or previously, this is what counts the most…if I was in their shoes, I would be looking for this opportunity to showcase that I have been better than what I have been doing,” the spin legend said.
India will begin their T20 World Cup campaign against Ireland on June 5 and Harbhajan feels that the team’s biggest concern is their pace attack.
“Pace attack definitely could be a concern because because (Jasprit) Bumrah is in a different league for the kind of bowler he is. He will win you games on any kind of pitch. He doesn’t need conditions whereas other bowlers like Arshdeep (Singh) and (Mohammed) Siraj would need help from conditions,” Harbhajan said.
“If there’s bounce, Siraj might do well. He is tall, can also swing it both ways, hits the deck hard and has got pace. But if wickets are slow then the challenge begins for other bowlers. There will be lot of responsibility on Bumrah’s shoulders but I hope other guys also take responsibility to be someone special,” he added.
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