India's premier all-rounder Hardik Pandya is a gun player, who makes little but significant contributions in both front of the game. The all-rounder was instrumental in India's triumph at the recently-concluded ICC Champions Trophy. He started the tournament as a third seamer and as the tournament progressed his bowling workload was lifted. After the first two group stage encounters, Pandya was seen spearheading India's attack with the new ball alongside Mohammed Shami, giving cushion to his skipper to field four spinners in slow Dubai tracks.
With the bat, he contributed and stood tall whenever required helping India maintain an unbeaten run and win the marquee tournament for the third time.
Weighing-in on Pandya's all-round show, former Pakistan pacer Shoaib Akhtar made an interesting assessment. The Rawalpindi Express compared Pandya with some legendary figures such as Malcolm Marshall, Waqar Younis, Javagal Srinath, and Brett Lee and said he is not close to any but hailed his mindset, which he feels makes him a match-winner.
"Hardik Pandya koi Malcolm Marshall ya Waqar Younis nahi hai. Javagal Srinath ya Brett Lee nahi hai. (Hardik is no Marshall, Waqar, Lee or Srinath). It's just his mindset. You throw him the new ball, he does it. You ask him to bowl in the middle, he does it. However, he is not that powerful hitter also. He had given that belief that the world is your stage. The market allows you to become big," Akhtar said on 'Game on Hai'.
Akhtar then mentioned that Pandya's powerful batting display was a norm in the Pakistan cricket team in the early 2000s by bringing the name of Abdul Razzaq, an ex-Pakistan all-rounder. "Aisi hitting, ye hamari team mein aam thi. (This type of hitting used to be a norm in the Pakistan team) He's really good, but this was the norm in Pakistan's team."
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This was when ex-Pakistan skipper Mohammad Hafeez joined in and stated Razzaq the better between him and Pandya. "I would agree with him. You take out the details of Abdul Razzaq's performances. He was a better and bigger performer. But the system didn't look after him and the player also didn't respond that much. He was limited in his skills, didn't try to outdo his own potential. Whatever I've seen of Razzaq, he was better than this version of Hardik," said Hafeez.
Razzaq represented Pakistan in all three format (46 Tests, 265 ODIs, and 32 T20Is) in which the all-rounder accumulated 7065 runs and registered 389 scalps.
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