The 25-year-old Indian pace-bowling all-rounder Hardik Pandya is currently on the recovery track while he has revealed that his goal is to be fit as the former South African pace-bowling all-rounder Jacques Kallis.
During the final group stage match against Pakistan in the Asia Cup 2018 in UAE in last month, Pandya suffered a back injury when he was bowling and soon he had to leave the ground on a stretcher. Since then, Pandya hasn’t played a match.
Talking about his present status in fitness, Pandya told TOI in a recent interview, “My recovery is on track. I’ve been busy with my fitness sessions and physiotherapy. I don’t know when (I’ll return to action), but right now I’m only focusing on getting fully fit.”
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Later, talking about his favourite all-rounder, Pandya added, “I love Jacques Kallis. The way he managed his workload, the number of games. He played in all the formats of the game, and was still fit. My goal is to be as fit as him.”
Pandya also said that his present biggest goal is to be fit for the 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup in England, which is just more than seven months left to begin.
He said on it, “My individual, and the team goal, right now is getting the World Cup back. It’s my biggest goal. I want to give more than 100% to make sure that we win the World Cup. That’s why right now, I’m focusing on improving my skills, fitness, mentally I want to get stronger. Because that 10-15% (extra) would be very critical. I’ll give 100%, but if I can give 10-15% more to my game, then it would give me great comfort, and I’d be able to do a lot of things which I’m not able to do now.”
Despite some good performances in the recent international cricket, Michael Holding and Sunil Gavaskar felt unhappy on his inconsistent performances as they still don’t consider Pandya as a Test all-rounder.
When the young all-rounder was asked whether it hurts him, Pandya replied, “No sir. Why would it hurt? They’ve played so much cricket. Let them say it. It’s OK. I’ve heard them so much. I respect that. I’m worthy enough that they’re talking about me. If I wasn’t, they wouldn’t have said anything about me! I take it in a positive way.”
Pandya believes the national skipper Virat Kohli has put an important impact on him to become a grown-up player.
Pandya said on that, “He’s (Kohli) been a great support. He’s helped me improve my game, which is a fantastic quality in him. Till now, I’ve grown with him. My career started under MS, then Virat took over. I’ve improved under both of them.”
