The blockbuster opening match of the IPL 2023 pits two captains who have a lot of history together – MS Dhoni and Hardik Pandya. The title mentor vs mentee has headlined several media outlets as part of the build-up to the IPL opener between Gujarat Titans and Chennai Super Kings. It was in 2016, that a young Hardik made his India debut under Dhoni, and today, seven years later is being looked up as the next limited-overs captain for India, while MSD gets ready for his swansong. Recently, ahead of an India vs Sri Lanka T20I in Ranchi, Hardik was asked whether he met Dhoni and picked his brains, to which the T20I captain replied by saying ‘I have already squeezed all the learnings that I had to out of him a long time ago,’ and today he would be hopeful of using all the Dhoni brain picking sessions to outfox his former captain.
Hardik has his own style of captaincy but certain players who have played under both him and Dhoni have sensed a few similarities between the two. Joining the bandwagon is former India spinner Anil Kumble, who was first teammates with Dhoni and later became his and Hardik’s coach with the Indian team. Kumble feels Hardik’s reading of the game is a lot like Dhoni and that reflects the way he takes decisions on the field.
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“He reads the game really well, just like MS Dhoni. You can see that in the way he bats and bowls, and also manages his bowling resources,” said Kumble on the ‘Insiders Preview – Hardik Pandya’ show on Jio Cinema. “For a fast bowler to be bowling at that pace and then coming in and batting in whichever situation, we have seen that with Mumbai Indians, he did the finisher’s role but last year we saw a different Hardik Pandya, the captain played a different role for Gujarat. In that sense, he’s the complete package you’d expect from a player.”
Also weighing in on Hardik was former India quick Zaheer Khan, who hailed GT captain’s versatility and marvelled Pandya’s ability to be an intelligent captain that takes advice from the experience around him, as seen in his relationship with head coach Ashish Nehra.
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“If you talk about an impact player, Hardik is the ideal impact player. In the situation where he bats, at number five or six, it is not easy, especially in this format where you have to use the last three or four overs to bat at a particular strike rate, while facing ten to twelve deliveries. That’s his specialty. His hand speed is exceptional and for a batter to have that hand speed and catch the ball, very few players can actually do that. Even when bowling, he can bowl at any phase, he is an all-phase bowler which is an asset,” he said on the same show.
“If you look at the previous IPL, what we saw was that Hardik had never captained before. That was an advantage for Ashish Nehra as well because when you haven’t been a captain before, you want to learn the most about it. That’s why Nehra and Pandya’s partnership emerged as the Jodi No. 1 last season.”
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