Hardik Pandya had a bit of roughness in his professional career, as he had an injury before the World Cup 2023 campaign, and the Mumbai Indians were almost pathetic under his captaincy in the IPL of 2024. However, Pandya was the star of the successful T20 World Cup 2024 for all the right reasons, handling a nerve-wracking last over in the final, while pulling off match-winning performances earlier in the tournament.
In his professional career full of ups and downs, Hardik Pandya has equally grabbed the spotlight through news of his personal life, including his divorce. He announced his divorce from his wife on July 19. He also has a son named Agastya from the same wife. The former couple has decided to co-parent their only child.
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As Agastya turned 4 years old on 30th of July, Hardik took to Instagram, making an emotional post about the deep affection he has toward his son. He wrote, accompanied by the heartfelt video of their time together: “You KEEP me going Every. Single. Day! Happy birthday to my partner in crime, my whole heart, my Agu. Love you beyond words!”
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In parallel to this development, Gautam Gambhir was anointed head coach of the Indian team, with both his preferred coaching setup, in the form of Abhishek Nayar and Ryan ten Doeschate, as assistant coaches.
This development also had fans talking, a lot of it in reference to some previous actions by the former player, whereas in his case, he had previously opposed loudly only to be stripped of the vice-captaincy in 2012, managing to keep the captaincy after disastrous results in away bouts.
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Fans found it a bit similar scenario to that of Hardik, who had also lost his vice-captaincy for the Sri Lanka limited-overs series. Here, Suryakumar Yadav and Shubman Gill were made captain and vice-captain in the T20I series. Of course, Nayar and Doeschate have had associations with Kolkata Knight Riders under Gambhir Nayar was an assistant coach, and Doeschate was a KKR player. Suryakumar joined KKR in the year 2014, and Gill, in the year 2018, made his debut for the team.
