Hardik Pandya: A Mentality Over Totality

Attitude could be defined as the readiness of an individual's psyche where he acts or reacts in a certain way based on the situation. Mind you, it is not god-gifted, nor it is hereditary. With experience and an outlook toward life, you tend to build your personality around it and the world defines it in a way you never would have thought they would.

Choryasi is a tiny village in Kamrej of Surat district in Gujarat with less than 200 families residing at the time when Hardik Pandya was born to Himanshu and Nalini on October 11, 1993. The father, a car financier, was an ardent cricket fan. When young Hardik accompanied him to Baroda's stadium, the sparkling eyes caught the first impression of the game and tried forging a love affair, every average Indian boy once had for cricket. 

When Hardik was seven, people misconstrued him as child labour whenever the family visited the local Punjabi Dhaba (restaurant). He never dared to get up and walk toward the hand wash zone fearing being called as one. His dark skin tone, baggy shorts, and buzz haircut had people stereotype him with the local Dhaba boys who hustled for a day's bread.

Talk about the attitude, the guy lacked it big-time

Cut to entering professional cricket, the boy was seen sporting a blonde hairdo, glossy silver chains around his neck, and a love for some international clothing brands he dreamt of owning once. He hid his car, which he bought in EMIs, fearing getting confiscated from the bank on defaulting the loan…things changed when Mumbai Indians picked him up in 2015 for a humble price of INR 10 Lakh.

Arrival of Clutch Pandya

An aggressive, flamboyant, fearless, and in-your-face Pandya played some breathtaking knocks. But his unforgettable innings against Pakistan in the 2017 Champions Trophy in a losing cause won every Indian’s heart. Fast-forward to the 2022 T20 World Cup, his partnership with Virat Kohli at the MCG against the same opposition just added to his laurels of performing under pressure.

Earlier the same year, he was not retained by MI and the all-rounder joined the Gujarat Titans in 2022 and led them to a title win in his debut season as captain. He was now the expert-prescribed material for India's captaincy, and he followed it with another finale against CSK in 2023. But 2024, was writing a chapter Hardik would have avoided even in his nightmares to not include in kaleidoscope on his darkest of days.

Never do human beings speculate more, or have more opinions, than about things which they do not understand.

MI decided to trade back Hardik in a record INR 15 crore deal. He was named as the captain, replacing the big man, Rohit Sharma. The fireflies were out in the garden, and they illuminated the personal jibes, negative comments, the remarks of ‘Chhapri’ (a person who has no standards), getting booed by over 30,000 plus crowd, and some more vulgar memes to that. All this because a rumour arose that Pandya has demanded captaincy in the trade clause.

Civilization runs a greater risk if we maintain our present attitude to religion than if we give it up

When I say ‘religion’ there, it is the norm society has stereotyped for a person to behave in a way conducive to their satisfaction and, in return, get their approval.

Let me make it clear, the perks when you do abide by it-

• Obstruction of Rational Thought
• Psychological Dependence
• Conflict and Division
• Resistance to Change

Approval…. Hmm…

When Pandya kept a smile on his face and was laughing around with the MI squad….the public disapproved.

When he delivered encouraging speeches as MI lost game after game…the public disapproved.

When he shrugged his shoulder and walked waving his hands with a wry smile…the public termed it as arrogance.

When a dog ran on the turf during the game and spectators called the dog “Hardik, Hardik”… the public approved.

But Pandya’s royal domain was fated to a land where he has jokingly termed all his life that he belonged to...

The Caribbean

After getting the Player of the Match in the T20 World sCup 2024 game against Bangladesh, Pandya had very little expected he would be inducted as Barbadian Bajan.

India had not won an ICC trophy since 2013, a World Cup 2023 Final loss was still healing, two WTC final losses, and it all boiled down to Pandya defending 16 runs off the last over as 1.6 billion countrymen converged behind his hunched back aiming at ready to kill David Miller on strike.

Pandya was not what happened to him over 6 months, Pandya was what he was about to become after 4 minutes

The first ball, a low full-toss, angled wide of the off-stump. Miller baseballs it towards long off, the ball sailing high, almost got the distance, dipping in over the rope and Suryakumar Yadav flowers it, throws away, hips and hops over the rope, comes back to pocket it as #HardikPandya catches pace on Twitter's trending page.

The second ball, Rabada nicks it one towards slip and gets a boundary. With the equation 12 off four, they take two singles, with the subsequent ball being a wide. 9 off 2 and Pandya cleans up Rabada. Indian fans at the stadium and back home saw a lean guy, with a traditional moustache look, shiny shaved skin glowing red with sweat oozing profusely collapse on the beige Caribbean soil as he defended the last ball.

India won the coveted ICC trophy after an 11-year hiatus

The Choryasi-born rose to the echelons of Indian cricket, enjoyed the stardom, and was brought down to the ground mercilessly. But little did the world know, that the Baroda’s hazy pebble was put under intense pressure of 7,25,000 pounds per square inch as the Social Media acted as temperature and live spectators cursing played the role of Carbon Atoms. The product… you might as well know what I am talking about.

This is what one of India’s best all-rounders quoted after the game,

More special for me, how my last 6 months were, I have been very graceful of not speaking a word, things have been very unfair, but I believed that if I keep working hard there will be a time where I would shine and do what I could do. That sums everything up. It was a dream to win. Getting an opportunity like this makes it even more special.