There is no denying to every successful Indian cricketer has a struggle story behind him, and the flamboyant all-rounder Hardik Pandya is no different. In a column for playersvoice.com.au, he revealed some of the unknown aspects of his struggling days before coming to Team India and the role former India wicket-keeper Kiran More played in introducing him to the sport.

Pandya starts off by saying how he is living a dream playing for India and IPL franchise Mumbai Indians (MI). He said, “It wasn’t much more than three years ago that Krunal and I were getting calls from bank collectors in Baroda, knowing we didn’t have enough money to pay them. We were young, not earning much and our father was recovering from multiple heart attacks. It was tough. If someone back then had told me, ‘Hardik, by the end of 2018 you will have been playing for India and the Mumbai Indians for quite some time, you will have this much money, you will have been able to look after your parents and people will love you,’ I would’ve been like, ‘Are you mad? This can’t happen! Don’t pull my leg.’”

Pandya further elaborated that everything changed for him in a matter of three months as when they won the T20 championship for Baroda and we received a lakh.

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He said, “Soon after the T20 championship, the IPL auction happened, and then we ended up winning the IPL that year and I received 60 lakh. It was a life-changer. Nothing has been the same since.”

One has to term it as a destiny as tthe younger brother had more spark than the elder brother Krunal and it was the latter who requested their father to send the former to Baroda. The Pandya family, after experiencing a personal tragedy, did move to Baroda after that, which perhaps kickstarted Hardik and Krunal’s careers.

Describing the same, Hardik said, “One day, the great Indian wicketkeeper Kiran More came to town. He watched Krunal play and saw something in him. He told my dad, ‘Why don’t you bring him to Baroda so he can play at my academy? There is not much chance to develop in Surat. But in Baroda, there is a future. Krunal was six-and-a-half and, if I’m not mistaken, the youngest age to be accepted into the academy back then was something like 12 or 13.”

The Pandya family experienced a personal tragedy when they lost someone close to them and it one of the things Hardik has never mentioned publicly before. Describing the same, Hardik mentioned that after Kiran’s visit and their family’s loss, our their destiny no longer seemed to be in Surat and it was meant to be.

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Relocating brought its own share of problems, but their parents did whatever they could to support the family.

Recalling the memories, the all-rounder said, “My father, Himanshu, ran a car finance business and he had to leave that behind. We went from quite a comfortable life in Surat to living in a small, one-bedroom home between the four of us in Baroda. My mother, Nalini, did everything she could to make it feel like home. Kiran’s academy was 20, maybe 25, kilometers from our home. My father had a basic motorbike and he would pick Krunal up and drop him off every day, four times up and back.”

Hardik, who can be termed as one of the crucial players in the Indian team, wasn’t really keen on taking up the sport early in his life, but here too on More’s insistence, he was sent to the academy where Krunal used to practice.

Elaborating the story, the Baroda cricketer said, “I was five when we left Surat and I didn’t play the game there. It was not until more than a year after we arrived in Baroda that I took an interest in cricket. And even then it was not for an obvious reason. I had lots of energy, always running here and there. I was the same around Krunal. I would see him at training and annoy him. Kiran saw this. He told my father one day, ‘Hardik is someone who makes people tired. If he is going to use all that energy, he may as well use it on cricket. Tell him to come and practice tomorrow.’ And that’s how my cricket journey started. By annoying Kiran More!”