Hardik Pandya looks in good shape on the road to recovery

After enjoying resounding success in the early part of his career, the past year has been a reality check for Hardik Pandya. Tipped as India’s next big all-round hope in Test cricket, he found it rather difficult to live up to the hype. He went through two ordinary Test tours of South Africa and England, followed by a back injury which forced him to be carried off on a stretcher while bowling in the Asia Cup encounter against Pakistan. But these incidents haven’t dampened his spirits.

Pandya just celebrated his 25th birthday by bringing a dog in his life and calls it ‘Bentley Pandya’. But more importantly, the all-rounder has begun his journey towards recovering to full match fitness. Although he’ll have to miss out on the ODI series against the Windies, Pandya will have his eyes set on the tour of Austalia later this year.

He took to Twitter to share a photograph of himself post a work-out session, with a caption that read, “Weekends started well. Road to recovery.”

World Cup is main goal for me and the team: Hardik

Hardik is also focusing on being a part of the India team for next year’s World Cup which will be held in England. Speaking to the Times of India, he said, “My individual, and the team goal, right now is getting the World Cup back. It’s my biggest goal. I want to give more than 100% to make sure that we win the World Cup. That’s why right now, I’m focusing on improving my skills, fitness…mentally I want to get stronger. Because that 10-15% (extra) would be very critical. I’ll give 100%, but if I can give 10-15% more to my game, then it would give me great comfort, and I’d be able to do a lot of things which I’m not able to do now.”

The Baroda cricketer recently faced some criticism for having failed in the Tests against England. The likes of Sunil Gavaskar and Michael Holding were critical of the all-rounder and said that he wasn’t ready to represent India in the longest format. However, Pandya wasn’t disappointed by the comments and said that he’d take them in his stride and make an effort to constantly improve his game.

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