The many hats of Hardik

“Yeh sab bolne ki baatein hai” (This is all for for the sake of saying)

In a moment of honesty, impulsiveness and indecisiveness rolled into one, Hardik Pandya laughingly rubbished his own statement made less than half an hour earlier – “I wanted to show what I had worked hard for. Today was the day I saved the best for.”

Whether or not he had saved up the best or delivered it on the glory day, Sunday evening couldn’t have played out more heroically for him.

In his first season as captain, he led a new team that was scorned upon even before the tournament started, to an IPL title win in front of nearly a lac people filling up the ground in its team’s first ever home game, while playing the lead role with both bat and ball.

In a way, he had sealed Royals’ fate in the 13th over of the game itself.

Attempting to open the face of his bat and working a length delivery by Hardik to the third man for an innocuous single, Jos Buttler got an edge to the ‘keeper. Reduced to 79 for 4, Gujarat Titans had entered Royals’ lower order – one with a lot of bowling skill, but minimal batting muscle.

That wicket had severely damaged, if not completely destroyed, Royals’ hopes of a second title. Buttler had after all scored nearly one-third of all of Royals’ runs this season, and nearly twice that of their second highest run-getter, Sanju Samson – who also fell to Hardik earlier, top edging a pull.

Lockie Ferguson clocked 157, Mohammed Shami remained a potent threat at all times and Rashid Khan continued to bamboozle the batters. In a closely-contested see-saw battle till then, Gujarat Titans bowlers had imposed themselves enough already, and yet, it was Hardik who was the standout bowler of them all – returning the most wickets in the most economical spell, while turning the fortunes of the contest.

On a pitch where the ball was shooting up, at times turning, and at times even sticking a bit, Buttler’s slow but assured start was the biggest hope for Royals to reach a respectable total. It wasn’t to be. Hardik, bowling hard lengths had figured out the key to demolition off the third ball of his spell: stick to his natural lengths, but a more disciplined line – not allowing room for batsmen to free their arms.

Coming into the tournament with a spate of injuries, and questions over how much his shoulders will aid him in his secondary skill, Hardik took the mantle of delivering his full quota of overs on a pacer-friendly pitch instead of using the two spin options at his disposal – R Sai Kishore and Rahul Tewatia.

“The second ball I bowled after getting Sanju out (third ball of the over), I realised that if you hit the wicket hard and hit the seam something is gonna happen,” Hardik said after the match. “It was all about sticking to the right lengths, asking the batters to play the right shots.”

If the Buttler strike wasn’t enough to sink Royals, in his next over, Shimron Hetmyer offered a return catch to him while fending a short delivery. For a team that had relied heavily on a few individual performers en route to the final, Hardik broke the back of their batting – dismissing three of their top four run-getters this season.

That slide in the middle overs exposed Royals’ obvious weak link, the lower order batters and the lack of their batting credibility. A swing each by Trent Boult and Obed McCoy got them a couple of sixes, but didn’t enhance much of their reputation as the team total was restricted to a below-par 129.

On a challenging surface, with a strong bowling attack, Rajasthan briefly threatened to make the contest intriguing, with Wriddhiman Saha and Matthew Wade dismissed early and Shubman Gill being probed. But then arrived Hardik again, this time with the bat.

After a few cagey overs, with Titans scoring at less than run-a-ball at the end of the 11th over, he broke the shackles and took the attack to R Ashwin, who was held up late enough to avoid the duo of Hardik and Gill. First, he pounced on the room outside off to slap a boundary and then followed it by launching a carrom ball on the leg stump over long on for a six. Hardik had already started to pick up the pace from a couple of overs earlier, but the 15-run over from Ashwin released the pressure of the chase and tilted the contest heavily in favour of Titans.

Even as he was dismissed a couple of overs later, undone by Yuzvendra Chahal’s mastery, he had laid the platform on which David Miller and Gill helped their side cruise to a win.

And with an effective innings of a 30-ball 34 in the low-scoring encounter, he capped off his highest run-scoring season. Fitted into a new role of a middle order enforcer in a team packed with finishers, even though his 487 runs came at a strike rate of 131.27, he isn’t ruing the loss. He can take even a much worse season if he can help his team to a title win, he claims.
After all, he feeds on ‘love’, as he says. And he is getting a lot of it, he admits.

In the frenzy, fast-paced, ever-changing dynamic world of T20 cricket, it was merely a saunter for the winners in the end. No surprises, no drama. Rajasthan’s Jos Buttler took the Orange cap and Yuzvendra Chahal took the Purple one. Hardik’s team – Gujarat Titans – just left with the title.

And just for the heck of it, if there’s any fairness in the algorithm-defying parameters of the Fairplay award, they were also recognised as the joint-best practitioners of it.

Four previous IPL titles notwithstanding, the stuff of dreams played out seamlessly for Hardik Pandya in Ahmedabad.

Even though he claims that his wins with Mumbai Indians were just as special even if unlikely to be as memorable, does he really mean it?

Well, in another moment of honesty sometime in the future, he just might admit: “Yeh sab bolne ki baatein hai”.