Hardik Pandya Reveals Sachin Tendulkar's Role In His Career

Hardik Pandya’s meteoric rise has taken one and all by surprise. His immense potential was very much clear with his exploits in his maiden Indian Premier League season in 2015 but he has proved his immense potential in the ongoing year.

The 23-year old, who made his One-Day International debut last year against New Zealand, has come of age this year with his consistent performances. After a highly successful Indian Premier League with the bat where he played a big role in Mumbai Indians successful campaign, the 23-year-old marked his arrival on the world stage with a sublime knock in the Champions Trophy final. On an otherwise dismal day for Team India, Pandya was the sole bright spot, as he slammed 76 runs off 43 balls in a heavy 180-run defeat.

His impressive performances saw him getting a place in the Test team for the Sri Lanka series, and he justified the decision by scoring a quickfire fifty on his debut before giving a Man of the Match performance in the third Test, as he scored 108 runs off 96 balls including eight fours and seven sixes.

He further enhanced his reputation with his brilliant performance in the five-match ODI series against Australia, winning his first Man of the Series award for scoring 222 runs and taking 6 wickets.

Pandya has now revealed Sachin Tendulkar’s encouraging words spurred him to do well.

“When Sachin sir told me that you will play for India. ‘If you keep playing like this you will play for India in one and half years’. To be honest, when he told me this I was more than happy and not even thinking of playing for India. I thought if Sachin sir is saying something like this, then at least I have something in me. So, it gave me a lot of self-confidence,” he told NDTV.

He further revealed that he left his studies not to concentrate solely on cricket but because of financial issues and was also not good with studies.

“I didn’t leave my studies because of the sport. It’s just that I was not good at it. There were many factors, money was a problem and I was not involved in studies. But I won’t suggest this to the youngsters. When someone has crossed 17-18, I just tell them to study. It’s very simple. Cricket is very difficult reason being a degree stays with you. As cricketers we are here right now, we might be somewhere else the next day,” he said.