'He confessed that he has no...' - Sanjay Manjrekar's big statement on Gujarat skipper Hardik Pandya after win against Chennai

Gujarat under the captaincy of Hardik Pandya played the tournament opener of the Indian T20 League 2023 against Chennai. Both teams played this match at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad. The defending champions Gujarat managed to start their campaign with a win against the four-time champions Chennai.

In a disappointing happening for the Gujarat camp, their veteran batter and former New Zealand skipper Kane Williamson happened to land over his right knee in an attempt to stop a six smashed by Ruturaj Gaikwad. He was ruled out of the further part of the match. There are also the possibilities that he might be ruled out of the entire edition of the tournament.

Meanwhile, commentator and former Indian batter, Sanjay Manjrekar reckoned that the former Australian skipper and batting superstar, Steve Smith could be a perfect substitute for Williamson to replace during the match. Manjrekar said later that the Aussie star could also support Pandya in some captaincy moves or decisions on the field.

"Steve Smith is the kind of player they want" - Sanjay Manjrekar on Hardik Pandya and captaincy

“I think that would be a brilliant call, and Steve Smith is the kind of player they want, somebody who can play all kinds of gears," said Manjrekar to Star Sports.

"Plus, with the new rules which he finds very cool, I’d love to see Smith's captaincy, we saw that and we were raving about it in the India-Australia series. And Hardik Pandya needs a bit of help, he confessed, ‘I have no idea what my tactics are, so I’m going to leave it to the others.’ So, that could be a great call actually,” he added later.

Notably, Smith recently captained the national side of Australia in a 2-1 win in the three-match ODI series against India in India. He also led Australia to the only Test win of Australia in the four-match Test series against India; it was the Indore Test where the visitors won by a massive margin of nine wickets.