“No.3 was always my dream”: Hardik Pandya on enjoying responsibilities in Indian T20 League 2022

Gujarat has been on a roll in the Indian T20 League 2022 winning six of their seven matches so far. One of the main reasons for their brilliant display in the tournament has been the excellent exploits of their skipper, Hardik Pandya in all aspects of the game. Notably, Hardik has batted in the lower order for his previous franchise Mumbai, but this season he has batted up the order for Gujarat.

He has already scored 295 runs in six matches in the tournament, leading the team from the front. While Hardik has generally batted at number four for the team in the last match against Kolkata, he came up at number three. He played a vital knock of 67 runs in the match and helped his team in winning the match. After his brilliant show at number three Hardik revealed that batting at the position has always been his dream.

In a conversation with Gujarat’s Director of Cricket Vikram Solanki, Hardik revealed- “No.3 was always my dream. In 2016, I played for Mumbai and they promoted me to no.3. I didn’t have a good time. This time, I had to make sure that I had to kill it.”

About form, I’ve been batting well. I’m very happy that it is coming at the right time. My role changes when Shubman (Gill) gets out. If Shubman is there, I play a different role but when he gets out, I become the Shubman Gill of this team.”- added Hardik.

While talking about his knock against Kolkata, he said – “So, it was just about making sure I play good cricketing shots, take less risks and the run-rate is there. I’m enjoying my batting.”

Meanwhile. Hardik has missed quite a bit of cricketing action in the past couple of years owing to injury issues. The concern seems to have returned as he refrained from bowling in the last match due to groin injury issues. It will be interesting to see if he runs with the ball in Gujarat’s next match against Hyderabad on the 27^th of April.