Pandya's pursuit of excellence

Ever since I made a comeback, my ambition is to be the best version of myself and to get the best out of myself. I am running towards, not greatness I would say, but excellence. I am running towards excellence; if I want to achieve something, I think it would be excellence, not performance. At the end of my career, if I can say to myself, you know what, you achieved excellence at one point of time, it would be great."

If you don’t immediately associate these words with Hardik Pandya, don’t be harsh on yourself. This is a side Pandya hasn’t allowed the world to see often – he’s generally linked with flash and bling and tattoos and diamond studs but clearly, there is more to the Baroda all-rounder than just fashion statements, however overstated.

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About this time last year, Pandya was in the eye of a major storm. Picked primarily as a finisher because his bowling had yet to express itself following a back surgery in England in 2019, Pandya bowled only four overs in five games at the 2021 T20 World Cup. His inability to step up as a bankable bowling option hamstrung Virat Kohli and inexorably altered the team’s balance for the worse, and while he alone wasn’t responsible for India’s embarrassing elimination in the Super 12s, it didn’t help that one string to his bow went AWOL.

Pandya didn’t bowl again for the country until June 2022, in the Twenty20 International series at home against South Africa. Since then, he has been a regular at the bowling crease, completing his full quota of four overs in seven of 18 innings. It’s a wonderful option to have because Pandya is much better than a fourth pacer, someone capable of cranking up the speed gun, who enjoys bashing the ball into the pitch and who can be quite a handful on the bigger grounds in Australia, as was obvious during the game against Pakistan on Sunday night when he picked up three for 30, all three scalps coming off the short ball.

He and Ravindra Jadeja provide the all-round depth that so completes the Indian team. Jadeja is out of the World Cup with a knee injury and while there is no like-for-like replacement for the mercurial left-hander, Axar Patel is adequate without being in the same league. Pandya, though, is as close to indispensable as there is in Indian white-ball cricket. Efforts to groom Venkatesh Iyer to offer an alternative as a medium-paced all-rounder have borne no fruit and India’s bankruptcy on that front is best exemplified by the faith shown in Shardul Thakur and Deepak Chahar, bowlers first who are competent with the bat. Neither of them is anything like Pandya, not by a long way.

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The leadership responsibility thrust on him by Gujarat Titans has clearly worked wonders. Pandya has always seen himself as a leader of sorts, but once the captaincy officially came his way, he has been unafraid to wear his outlook on his sleeve. With the Titans, he was exceptional, leading from the front but also carrying his troops along with him. The decision to entrust David Miller with greater authority as the batting lynchpin has paid dividends both for the franchise and for South Africa, where Miller was often confused about what was expected of him. To pin his resurrection at the altar of Pandya’s man-management skills will be no exaggeration.

While his bowling continues to flourish – Pandya has 15 wickets in 20 T20Is this year and often snares vital breakthroughs because he is deceptively sharp and can lull batsmen into a false sense of security – his batting has come on by leaps and bounds. He is now a situationally aware player, no longer a mere six-hitter but armed with greater consciousness of ground dimensions, the art of building an innings and which bowlers to target and whom to play with care, if not circumspection.

On another night, three for 30 and 40 would have thrust him into the limelight but Virat Kohli’s brilliance shaded all on Sunday at the MCG. Pandya doesn’t seem to care about accolades and encomiums, because he is now his greatest fan and harshest critic. That’s a combination hard to beat.

(R Kaushik is a senior cricket writer)