IND All-Rounder Defends His Expressive Style: ‘Everyone Wants To Be Like Hardik Pandya, But They Can’t

Hardik Pandya’s effervescent personality has often brought him into the limelight and, accordingly, under scrutiny and misunderstandings. The star all-rounder faced flak earlier this year when he shifted from Gujarat Titans to Mumbai Indians in the IPL, where fans criticized him for taking over the captaincy from five-time IPL champions’ previous skipper. Boos rained from the audience all across the country during the tournament. However, he corrected himself in the T20 World Cup 2024 where he gave outstanding performances in the final innings, particularly during the final himself, where he picked up three key wickets one of which was the finals’ last moment of David Miller.

Pacer from Gujarat Titans who returned to IPL under the leadership of Hardik in IPL 2022 had candidly responded, while showing allegiance to his former captain, saying, “Someone so expressive can be difficult to accept, I guess.”.

“The concept of being misunderstood is different for everyone. If I like to remain humble, it doesn’t mean that everyone would like to remain humble. There are some people who are over-expressive. In our community, we find it hard to accept when someone comes out like that,” Mohit said on the 2 Sloggers YouTube Channel.

He further explains why many want to be like Hardik but cannot, for which he is being criticized.

“I will give you a perfect example – if you sit in a high-rise building and see someone enjoying the rain, even we feel like doing it, but our hesitation stops us. So, everyone wants to be like Hardik, but they can’t be like him, which results in these things,” he added.

Mohit also elaborated that the approachable nature of Hardik as a captain helps him to create a healthy team culture.

“As a person, Hardik is a very nice human being. He is a darling type of guy and very easy-going. He makes the atmosphere very healthy. It doesn’t matter what the world thinks. As a leader, there is always some scope for improvement. Hardik’s biggest quality is that he gets his players pumped up because he himself likes to be pumped up,” he noted.

Meanwhile, in what can only be described as a new blow, Hardik missed this opportunity to become the T20I captain of India after Rohit Sharma’s resignation from the format as selectors instead preferred Suryakumar Yadav as his replacement. Hardik had to lose this opportunity due to fitness-related reasons that have severely limited him from cricket for most of the last few years.