The Indian allrounder Hardik Pandya is going to captain an IPL franchise for the first time next season when he will take charge of the newly inducted Ahmedabad IPL franchise. Ahmedabad has picked Hardik as their first draft pick before the season, for 15 crore INR, and has already announced him the captain of the side as well.
Hardik will be the first ever captain in the history of the Ahmedabad franchise, and it has been a remarkable turnaround of not just the career, but the life of the Gujarati allrounder who was an unknown name in the cricket world till 2015.
It was in 2014 that Hardik Pandya had put his services up for sale in the IPL auction, but nobody placed a single bid for him back then because nobody knew about him a lot and the allrounder went unsold. He, however, tried his luck again in 2015 and this time around, Mumbai Indians bought him for 10 Lakh INR, as the coaching staff of Mumbai had seen Hardik in one of the trials conducted by the franchise.
Hardik, within one season, became one of the prominent members of the Mumbai Indians squad and it was during his debut season itself that he became an IPL winner with Mumbai, as Mumbai beat CSK in the 2015 IPL final to lift the trophy for the second time in 3 years.
Hardik Pandya was retained by Mumbai Indians ahead of 2018 IPL mega auction
The development of Hardik as an allrounder was so rapid that Mumbai overlooked many international players ahead of the mega auction of 2018 and signed Hardik as one of their three retentions, alongside Jasprit Bumrah and Rohit Sharma. Hardik was paid 11 crore INR for that retention.
Hardik Pandya, by that time, had also become an established international cricketer and had already made his debut for the Indian national team in all three formats of the game.
While Hardik’s returns for Mumbai for the last couple of years in the IPL have not been that great and that’s why Mumbai released him ahead of this year’s mega auction, Hardik would have still generated huge interest in the mega auction because of his allround abilities. But, Ahmedabad signed him in the draft round itself, which was there in place specifically for the two new franchises.
As the IPL season gets underway towards the end of March this year, Hardik will be walking out for toss with some of the greatest captains going around in the game. It has been an incredible journey for a boy from middle class background, who has turned his life around in a space of 7 years.
