Former India pacer and Gujarat Titans head coach Ashish Nehra said he did not have any doubt about Hardik Pandya’s captaincy skills from the word go and that the all-rounder’s rich IPL experience made him a fine leader for the side in IPL 2022.
Ashish Nehra said a lot has been spoken about Hardik Pandya’s captaincy after Gujarat Titans lifted the IPL 2022 trophy in their first-ever season in the tournament but that he always know about the potential that the Baroda star possessed as a leader.
Hardik also went on to captain India in T20Is after the IPL 2022 success and now is being looked at by the BCCI top-brass as a potential successor to Rohit Sharma in white-ball formats.
“Hardik Pandya, at times, people see him as a new captain, struggling from injuries. But when it comes to his captaincy, the kind of ability he has with the bat, and the ball, the kind of persona he has, he is a very positive person. I never doubted that (his captaincy),” Nehra told Jio Cinema on the eve of the IPL 2023 auction in Kochi.
“Now, in the hindsight, we are talking after winning, but it’s not about winning or losing. The kind of aura he has shown, if you ask me as a coach, you can look at a player and tell what he is thinking, Hardik Pandya is a very positive guy. I never felt he is a new captain and he doesn’t know what to do.
“He is a stable guy, he is a confident guy. He knows how to operate in IPL. Maybe, he is not someone who has done a lot of captaincy but he has been part of the IPL. He was a very important part of Mumbai Indians, who have won many titles. He was there. There was no shortage of IPL experience.
“Everybody has to start somewhere, nobody is a born captain. And you try to mold them. As support staff, we were trying to help him as much as possible,” he added.
