IND vs SA: India vs South Africa Live Updates – Indian all-rounder Hardik Pandya, who has recently earned the tag of ‘new captain cool’, has revealed how the original captain cool Mahendra Singh Dhoni saved his international career. Despite a poor debut for India, Dhoni took a big gamble by selecting Pandya for the 2016 ICC Cricket World Cup and it paid off brilliantly. Follow IND vs SA live updates, India vs South Africa live updates on InsideSport.IN.
After winning the IPL 2022 trophy with Gujarat Titans, Pandya is getting compared to MS Dhoni in terms of style of captaincy. Incidentally, it was only because of Dhoni’s captaincy that the all-rounder from Baroda became a superstar, as his debut was not worth remembering. Playing a T20I game against Australia, he conceded 21 runs in his first over and could easily have been axed from the team, but Dhoni decided otherwise.
IND vs SA: ‘New Captain Cool’ Hardik Pandya reveals how MS Dhoni saved his career, selected him for World Cup despite HORRIFIC debut – Check Out
Reminiscing the incident, Hardik told SGTV Podcast “The kind of debut I had – I think I am the first cricketer who had gone for 21 runs in his first over – I genuinely felt that ok, this might be my last over. But I was very blessed and lucky to play under Mahi bhai who showed lot of trust in us which has helped us reach where we did.“
“When I joined the Indian team, I saw guys whom I had seen growing up – Suresh Raina, Harbhajan Singh, Yuvraj Singh, MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli, Ashish Nehra. Even before I played for India, they were the stars. For me, when I went there it was a big thing,” he further added.
IND vs SA: ‘New Captain Cool’ Hardik Pandya reveals how MS Dhoni saved his career, selected him for World Cup despite HORRIFIC debut – Check Out
Furthermore, Hardik also revealed now Dhoni played a crucial role in his selection in the Indian squad for World Cup, by saying “Just after the third game of my international career, Mahi bhai told me you will be the World Cup team. So for me, to play World Cup or to get to know that in the third game I just got to know about this.“
Meanwhile, Hardik has been selected for the upcoming five-match T20I series against South Africa. He had an excellent IPL 2022 campaign, both as a captain and as a player, and Indian fans would expect him to show similar form against the Proteas as well.
IND vs SA Schedule
| South Africa tour of India, 2022 | ||||
| Sr. No. | Day | Date | Match | Venue |
| 1 | Thursday | 9th June | 1st T20I | Delhi |
| 2 | Sunday | 12th June | 2nd T20I | Cuttack |
| 3 | Tuesday | 14th June | 3rd T20I | Vizag |
| 4 | Friday | 17th June | 4th T20I | Rajkot |
| 5 | Sunday | 19th June | 5th T20I | Bengaluru |
IND vs SA Squads
India squad: KL Rahul (C), Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ishan Kishan, Deepak Hooda, Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant (vice-captain, wk), Dinesh Karthik (wk), Hardik Pandya, Venkatesh Iyer, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Ravi Bishnoi, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Harshal Patel, Avesh Khan, Arshdeep Singh, Umran Malik.
South Africa squad: Temba Bavuma (C), Quinton de Kock, Reeza Hendricks, Heinrich Klaasen, Keshav Maharaj, Aiden Markram, David Miller, Lungi Ngidi, Anrich Nortje, Wayne Parnell, Dwaine Pretorius, Kagiso Rabada, Tabraiz Shamsi, Tristan Stubbs, Rassie van der Dussen and Marco Jansen.
IND vs SA: ‘New Captain Cool’ Hardik Pandya reveals how MS Dhoni saved his career, selected him for World Cup despite HORRIFIC debut – Check Out
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