Hardik Pandya’s maiden stint as Gujarat Titans’ captaincy had been fruitfull because the team had checked all the boxes before lifting IPL trophy in their maiden season by beating Rajasthan Royals in the finals. It was also World Cup 2011 winning coach Gary Kirsten first time mentoring the team alongside Hardik Pandya and he has left an impact on the mentor.
“I’ve been impressed with Hardik Pandya. Not having known him well earlier, I’ve got a view on him now that he’s this cricketer who just plays instinctively and takes the game on. He engages in a lot of cricket conversations and wants to learn, wants to get better and improve and understand his players,” Kirsten told Times of India.
“What stands him apart is how keen he is to learn. He is one of those players. And we’ve seen how leadership has come so naturally to him. He is an impact-player who can win games for you and to have someone that could do it with bat and ball, especially in a format as short and unpredictable as this one, is special.”
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“As a new franchise, our focus was in trying to understand combinations” – Gary Kirsten
Hardik Pandya had scored the second-highest runs (487) for Gujarat Titans in IPL 2022. Also he scalped eight wickets, which is third highest for the Titans. Having recovered from a back injury and a horrible stint in recent T20 World Cup, Pandya showed a lot of responsibilities and control.
“As a new franchise, our focus was in trying to understand combinations, building a team, making sure that we do what we can to keep improving with each game and that’s how we went about. We started the tournament on a good note and that was nice because it took a bit of pressure off early on,” Kirsten added further.
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