Former Indian cricketer turned commentator Aakash Chopra has haied Hardik Pandya for his brilliant captaincy skills as he led the Indian cricket team to T20I series win against New Zealand. Hardik Pandya, who was named the stand-in captain of the Indian side in the absence of Rohit Sharma, impressed one and all with his cool demeanor under pressure and his strategies as a captain.
On the other hand, India’s regular skipper Rohit Sharma has found himself under the scanner of critics ever since India’s exit from the T20 World Cup 2022. Several cricketers and experts have backed Hardik Pandya as the ideal choice for the future T20I captain of the Indian side.
While reviewing the series in a video shared on his YouTube channel, Chopra also picked Hardik Pandya’s captaincy in the just-concluded T20I series as one of the biggest positives for team India. He also went on to explain the difference in Pandya’s captaincy from Rohit’s captaincy. He explained:
“I liked Hardik Pandya’s captaincy style a lot, like getting Deepak Hooda to bowl. We saw Rohit (Sharma) was not doing that, Rohit was not getting Venkatesh Iyer to bowl as well. Rohit doesn’t get the sixth bowler to bowl. He does that in the IPL but not for India, there is something.”
Further, Chopra pointed out that Hardik unlike Rohit was keen to utilize Deepak Hooda with the ball. Hardik wanted a sixth-bowling option so he tried out Hooda and it worked well for the side. Speaking about the same, he said:
“Hardik Pandya is saying he doesn’t want to bowl, Deepak Hooda will bowl, or he can send him up the order, he can bowl him at the death and in the powerplay also, or get through some overs by bowling him in the middle.”
For the unversed, Deepak Hooda did exceptionally well with the ball as he returned with the figures of 4/10 in the 2.5 overs he bowled in the 2nd T20I. He bowled a solitary over in the final T20I match, where he conceded just 3 runs.
Aakash Chopra feels that though it might be the initial days of Hardik’s captaincy, things seem to be moving in the right direction for the Indian cricket team.
