Hardik Pandya Player Profile, Age, Career, Bowling & Batting Stats

Hardik Pandya is an Indian All-rounder, who is touted to be India's next white-ball captain. Born in Choryasi, Surat, Gujarat, to a small car finance businessman, Pandya and his family had to leave from Surat for Baroda to facilitate his and his brother's cricketing aspirations.

Hardik Pandya went through a very tough time during his childhood days especially because of his dream to become an International cricketer.

Upon moving to Vadodara (Baroda), Hardik's father Himanshu Pandya admitted his two sons - Krunal Pandya (the other one) to the Kiran More Cricket Academy.

He wasn't always the seam-bowling all-rounder we know of. Hardik Pandya had started as a leg-spinner but his first coach in Baroda - Sanath Kumar, asked him to focus on fast bowling.

From there onwards, Hardik became a seam bowling all-rounder, who during his initial years of junior club cricket, was known for his range-hitting prowess.

His brother Krunal Pandya had revealed that Hardik used to help his team win matches, single-handedly, and that his ability to score 6s had been there since his childhood days.

Moreover, he was also known for being expressive or over-expressive at times and had attitude problems from the very beginning of his career.

Those close to him during his initial years have claimed that Hardik Pandya was dropped from Junior-level cricket teams due to his bad behavior. That's something he labeled as an expressive kid who never liked to hide his emotions.

But all because of his talent and stern focus, Hardik Pandya was picked to represent the Baroda team in 2013 for the domestic season.

He made his debut for Baroda through the Syed Mushtaq Ali trophy against Mumbai on March 17, 2013. Hardik rubbed shoulders with some legendary names like Ambati Rayudu, Yusuf Pathan, Irfan Pathan, and Munaf Patel in the Baroda team.

In the latter half of 2013, Hardik Pandya made his Ranji Trophy debut for Baroda against Madhya Pradesh on November 28. He had an ordinary performance in that match but his team did win the match by 246 runs. Exactly a year later, Hardik made his Vijay Hazare trophy debut on November 8, 2014, against Gujarat.

Therein, Baroda might have lost but Hardik Pandya displayed a fantastic knock of 69 off 61 in the 1st innings and did not bowl during Gujarat's successful chase.

As he was grinding himself in the domestic circuit, 2013 IPL winners Mumbai Indians' scouting team spotted Hardik during a trial and when he was introduced during the auction for the 2015 season, MI picked him at his base price and the rest is history as we know.

He left domestic cricket after scoring 1351 runs from 29 first-class matches, 2103 runs from 103 List A matches, and 4556 runs from 250 T20 matches.

In his debut IPL season in 2015, Hardik Pandya took the league by storm. His power-hitting prowess and decent bowling quickly helped him become one of the hottest domestic prospects of the league.

He scored 112 runs from 9 matches in 2015 at a 180+ strike rate but scalped just 1 wicket.

His luck was such that MI despite a poor start to the season, were able to clinch their 2nd IPL title by beating CSK in the finale.

By his second season, Hardik was called up to the Indian national team where he made his debut in a T20I series against Australia in January.

His performance was such that then captain MS Dhoni picked him for the T20 World Cup of that year wherein, his most memorable performance came in the match against Bangladesh where he helped India win in the final over.

While his second IPL season was not that special, Hardik Pandya kept on making moves with the national team.

On October 16, 2016, he made his official ODI debut against New Zealand wherein he picked up 3 wickets but did not have the chance to bat as India had won the match by 6-wickets.

In July 2017, Hardik Pandya earned his maiden Test cap against Sri Lanka in Galle. He had a very good Test debut, scoring 50 runs in the 1st innings and scalping a wicket across innings in the match which India won by 304 runs.

Slowly, he was becoming an important asset across all 3 formats but in 2018, Hardik endured an ugly back injury that kept him out of action for a while.

The very next year, he fell under major controversy due to certain comments he made on the popular talk show - Koffee with Karan.

By the year 2020, Pandya had won 4 IPL titles - 2015, 2017, 2019, and 2020 and he was becoming a senior player gradually. During the 2022 T20 World Cup, Pandya made contributions with both bat and ball.

He had scored an important 40 runs during India's win over Pakistan in Melbourne and also scored 63 runs during the semi-final against England in Adelaide where India lost by 10 wickets.

But before all that had happened, Pandya's seniority saw him move to the new IPL franchise Gujarat Titans in 2022. He was appointed as captain and GT went on to defeat Rajasthan Royals to win the Premier League in only their first attempt.

In 2023, Pandya led GT to another final but this time MS Dhoni's CSK stood in their way and grabbed their 5th title.

That very year, Hardik Pandya was supposed to play an important role in the ICC Cricket World Cup but during India's league match against Bangladesh, Pandya rolled over his feet. The injury saw him get ruled out of the entire tournament with India losing in the finals against Australia on November 19th.

That triggered conversations about Pandya leading India's white-ball team in the future which he even became in certain series'. However due to his struggle with an ankle injury,

Pandya missed the opportunity to go into the ICC T20 World Cup 2024 as the captain while Rohit Sharma was re-appointed for the major event.

Another ugly turn in his career came when the Mumbai Indians struck a trade deal with Gujarat Titans for the transfer of Hardik Pandya for 15 Crores INR. Not only that, Pandya was also appointed as the new MI captain, replacing 5-time title-winning skipper Rohit Sharma from the helm.

That move did not go well with MI fans, who still continue to boo and jeer him during home and away matches.

In terms of his international stats, then Hardik Pandya has scored a total of 3649 runs - 532 in 11 Test matches, 1769 in 86 ODIs, and 1348 from 92 T20Is.

His IPL stats have seen him score 2440 runs from 129 matches and scalp 132 wickets.