Hardik Pandya made his T20 debut on 27 January 2016 at the age of 22, where he played against Australia and bagged two wickets. In 2021, Hardik Pandya was included in the T20 squad for the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup. But he failed to live up to the expectations. He scored only 11 against Pakistan where India lost by 10 wickets.
In the Indian Premier League (IPL), he has been playing for the Mumbai Indians (MI) from 2015 to 2021. Then he changed his side to Gujarat Titans (GT) in the 2022 edition of the IPL where GT won the championship trophy under Hardik Pandya‘s captaincy. In the 2024 IPL edition, he switched back to Mumbai Indians (MI) as the captain. But things didn’t seem to go his way as the MI had already been kicked off the playoff race.
Judging Hardik Pandya everyday in every match and every-time is not right- Gautam Gambhir
But Gautam Gambhir has a firm belief in the youngster. He strongly believes that Hardik needs some time to cope with the team because the latter just got switched back to the Mumbai Indians after having played for the GT for 2 years. He reckons that the criticism he’s been facing lately is because the team has not played well in this season.
On this Gambhir stated:
“Give him (Hardik) a bit more time. Judging him everyday in every match and everytime is not right. Those experts should see their own performances when they have captained a side. It’s probably worse than any other leader. Ultimately its the performance and today Mumbai Indians have not performed well so everyone is talking about it,”
However, Hardik Pandya and co. have a shot to win if they can defeat LSG on May 17 in Wankhede Stadium and get a boost at their points.