Former India batsman and now a commentator Aakash Chopra has pointed out a major flaw in Hardik Pandya’s batting in T20Is in recent times.
Hardik Pandya has been copping criticism and trolling left, right, and center following India’s 3-2 series loss to the West Indies, a team that had last year failed to qualify for the Super 12 round of the T20 World Cup in Australia, and recently failed to qualify for the World Cup 2023.
This series loss exposed Hardik Pandya’s shortcomings as a captain and as a batsman in T20Is. In the 5-T20I series Hardik managed to score only 77 runs at a strike rate of 110, including 14(18) in the series-deciding match which India lost.
Aakash Chopra brought up the numbers and concluded that Pandya hasn’t been able to do the sort of power-hitting in the past year in T20Is that he used to do earlier.
“If we see his stats as a batter also in T20Is from 15th August (2022) to 15th August (2023), he has played 25 matches, among those who have batted at No. 4 or lower, he is third from bottom in terms of strike rate. He has not done a lot of hitting there as well. So that is also a problem,” Chopra said in his YouTube video.
“The striking power has been seen slightly less. If you see his international numbers for the last little while, you will find that he hasn’t done any significant hitting. In the last 10 T20Is, you see only two or three instances where the runs are more than the balls, which is not a good story.”
Hardik Pandya has changed as a batsman after becoming captain
Since becoming India’s interim captain in T20Is in the past year, Hardik Pandya has tried to do the anchor role and failed most of the time in being unable to attack later in his innings.
In the T20I matches that he’s captained India, he has a strike rate of only 124, while in matches not as India’s captain, he had a strike rate of 144.
This has been the same story in the IPL in the past two years as Gujarat Titans‘ captain as well. In the IPL, for Mumbai Indians, Hardik had a strike rate of 153 while for Gujarat Titans, he has struck at 133.
Chopra added: “The 2022 IPL was brilliant, where he hit very well, the strike rate was high, the runs and wickets were also more. 2023 was an okay-okay IPL. The runs were also fewer, he picked up only three wickets and the strike rate wasn’t anything special either.”
“His bowling economy was also 9.12 and the batting average was also okay-okay. He scored only two half-centuries whereas he had four fifties the year before that.”
