Gujarat Titans (GT) coach Ashish Nehra shed light on why the franchise management zeroed in on Hardik Pandya as their captain, as he helped the franchise win the inaugural title by defeating Rajasthan Royals (RR) in the final of IPL 2022.
Nehra, who donned the head coach hat for GT, revealed he informed Hardik Pandya about the captaincy over the phone ahead of their inaugural season last year.
“On the phone, I told him that he is going to be the captain, and he was ready for the captaincy. He was pumped and if you have that kind of desire, then the sky is the limit for someone like Hardik,” Nehra said on the GK meets GT podcast.
Host Gaurav Kapur asked Ashish Nehra what prompted them to pick Hardik Pandya as the captain and what were the reasons behind their decisions.
“He has donned the captaincy but we knew that he will always be in the playing XI. He was ready to have a conversation with Gary Kirsten and Vikram Solanki. He had no ego. He knew that we all are here to help him. As a person, Hardik Pandya was the same be the first week or the last week, but he evolved. I learned so many things, Hardik Pandya is fifteen years younger than me and he also evolved,” Nehra said.
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He also said that the franchise had ‘fitness issues’ with Hardik Pandya and it was a challenge for him as well but he never panicked.
“Everything starts from somewhere. When you are talking about Hardik Pandya, we must not discuss what kind of player he is. It was just a fitness issue, and it can happen to any cricketer. Sportsperson’s life is not going to be similar all the time. I played a few series with Hardik, and my last stint was with Team India. He was starting then. We had that kind of relationship. He never losses his temper.
I just helped him. Hardik has done the captaincy for only one year now. He is leading India in the T20Is as well. Even if he is doing captaincy for two, three, or five years still there’s so much to learn. My job as a coach is to explain things to him ‘Keep things simple, here are few things that you can do better’,” he said.
GT have won both their games in IPL thus far and will next meet KKR at home on April 9.
(The Indian Express inputs)
