Hardik Pandya’s captaincy is different to Virat Kohli or MS Dhoni: Former India selector Saba Karim

Hardik Pandya made a roaring comeback to action when he led Gujarat Titans to the IPL title in their debut season. He impressed as a leader, as a batter and even chipped in with the ball. He then made an emphatic statement for India in the T20I series against South Africa where he assumed the role of a finisher and combined brilliantly with Dinesh Karthik in the final overs.

He will now lead a young India side for the T20I series in Ireland and it will be interesting to see if he can take his IPL captaincy traits to the international circuit. Experts have been raving about his demeanour as a leader. Former national selector Saba Karim believes that Pandya has managed to carve out his own brand of captaincy.

“I think Hardik Pandya, although he spent a lot of time with MS Dhoni, spent a lot of time with Virat Kohli, he has his own brand of captaincy and the way he plays his cricket is so different from what Virat does or what MS Dhoni does,” Karim said in TOI‘s podcast ‘Sportscast‘.

Karim was part of the selection committee that picked Pandya for the first time for the Indian side back in 2016. He now believes that the player has evolved as a cricketer and as a person. Karim also said that Hardik has changed his lifestyle and has also reinvented his game.

“He has grown not only as a person but also as a cricketer and it seemed like it had come to a stage where he really had to reinvent his lifestyle to become a more mature cricketer and that’s what was seen in this season’s IPL,” he further added.

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