The former Indian fast bowler and current Gujarat Titans head coach, Ashish Nehra, is of the view that Hardik Pandya can’t be the 5th bowler for India’s white ball sides. Even if he is bowling well and bowling a lot of overs, the Indian team shouldn’t go into a tournament with him as the 5th bowling option. They should see him as the 6th bowler.
According to Ashish Nehra, who is a pundit these days for Sony Sports Network, Hardik is good enough to make his way into the Indian white-ball teams as a batsman itself, but as far as his bowling is concerned, one can never be certain if he will bowl his full quota of overs or not.
Nehra worked with Pandya in what turned out to be a fantastic captain-coach partnership at Gujarat Titans and in none of the games that Gujarat Titans played in IPL 2022, they went with Hardik as their 5th bowler. They always had their five bowling options covered and Hardik bowled only when he thought he would make a difference with the ball on a certain pitch.
Ashish Nehra reckons the kind of fitness struggles Hardik has gone through, it will be wise for India to take his bowling as a bonus only and consider him mainly a batsman who can bowl, rather than expecting full quota of overs from him every game.
Hardik Pandya was man of the match in IPL 2022 final for his bowling
Hardik Pandya was declared man of the match in IPL 2022 final for his bowling, as he bowled a match defining spell which included a three-wicket haul in the middle phase of the innings, reducing a star studded Rajasthan Royals to a score which was way below par.
Hardik then showed his bowling prowess again in the first T20I against England recently, where after scoring a fifty, he secured a 4-fer with the ball later.
