Captain Hardik Pandya. Why not?

The idea of grooming Hardik Pandya for the larger role once Rohit Sharma moves on may not be entirely preposterous. Question is, will his fitness hold?

A little over four months back, when Ahmedabad-based Gujarat Titans announced the acquisition of Hardik Pandya, Rashid Khan, and Shubman Gill while also naming Pandya their skipper for the debut season, not many would have envisioned the wiry 28-year-old lifting the Indian Premier League (IPL) trophy on their home ground, egged on by lakh-plus raucous supporters on a humid Ahmedabad night. But there he was, 129 days later, soaking in the applause and drenched in confetti as the clock ticked past midnight.

Make way for Hardik Pandya - five-time IPL winner, once as a skipper(BCCI)

Make way for Hardik Pandya - five-time IPL winner, once as a skipper. After the adrenaline subsided and he sat for a media interaction, Pandya reflected on the win with typical ebullience, but never once losing perspective.

"Obviously, this will be a little special because I have won it as a captain," he said. "The four that I have won before this are equally special too. Winning IPL is always special. I consider myself very lucky that I have played five finals and have lifted the trophy five times. Obviously, this will leave a legacy because we are a new franchise, playing for the first time, and we are champions in the first season. But the four that I have won before this were equally special."

While his own performance - 487 runs and eight wickets at an economy of 7.27 runs per over - deserves accolades, the contributions he managed to extract from David Miller (481 runs, SR 142.72) and Shubman Gill (483 runs, SR 132.32) proved pivotal to GT's campaign. Mohammed Shami, considered by many as a red-ball specialist, repeatedly picked wickets upfront; his 20 scalps making him the sixth most successful bowler this IPL. The team kept finding new faces to bail them out, with the likes of Wriddhiman Saha and Rahul Tewatia impressing when the need arose. At the centre of it all, was the unmistakable Pandya, leading from the front, inspiring or even goading his men.

As the tournament wore on, Pandya began asserting himself as a natural leader of men. The sight of him smiling in the dugout as his team gunned down one opponent after another became the enduring image of GT's campaign, if not of IPL 2022 itself. It's easy to dismiss GT's success as beginner's luck, but the unmissable aura that steadily built around the team had its genesis in solid backroom work and sticking to the right processes. Quite naturally, conversations around Pandya being fit for the larger role in the Indian team have started.

The most ringing endorsement came from batting great Sunil Gavaskar. “When you have leadership qualities, it automatically opens the door for honours at the national level to be able to captain the Indian national team in the near future,” Gavaskar said on Star Sports.

“The way he has led the team, the way he has got them together, the way he has got them to gel together means he has got leadership qualities. Not just my estimation, but everybody's estimation. This was an aspect of his game which nobody had too much information about.”

Gavaskar is not off the mark. Once an automatic pick for the white-ball squad, his prolonged back injury not only cost him his bowling, but consequently a place in the team. As India dabbled with Venkatesh Iyer for the seam-bowling all-rounder's role with little-to-no success, the need for a fit-again Pandya was felt with each passing match. That Venkatesh Iyer had a forgettable IPL didn't help his matters. Pandya, conversely, soared both as a player and a tactician.

IPL 2022 showed Pandya was not only fit to bowl four overs regularly — he rolled his arm over in 10 of the 15 matches he played — but do them at a lively pace, often breaching the 140 kmph-mark.

Like many skippers, he has shown to be a bowler's captain. "People say T20 is a batters' game but I have always maintained that bowlers win you matches. Because if the batters don't get a par score, if you have a gun bowling line-up, the bowlers can pull things back. We have always given ten runs fewer. Even when others have conceded 190, we have gone for ten fewer. Those ten runs win or lose you matches in the bigger picture," he said.

With all-format skipper Rohit Sharma already 35 and the young Indian skippers in IPL — Mayank Agarwal, KL Rahul, Sanju Samson, and Shreyas Iyer — still showing to be a work in progress, the idea of grooming Pandya for the larger role once Sharma moves on may not be entirely preposterous. Question is, will his fitness hold?