Hardik Panda the test player

[mancalledsting]

This guy divides opinion. The way I see it, he has potential to be a test class all rounder (five for in England and almost 100 on a bowler friendly deck in South Africa).  Has ability to achieve batting average > 40 and bowling average < 33 (especially if rest of the pack remain as good as they currently are); this would bring excellent balance to the side. Unfortunately for this to happen, he needs to gather more experience of first class cricket (including county) and reduce his ODI and t20 workload e.g. only play tournaments and pre tournament (BCCI should support him with this). LOIs will decrease the intensity in his game, increase the number of injuries and preventing from honing necessary skills in first class cricket. Since I can never see him putting test cricket above LOIs, he should make an executive decision at this age and become a pure LOIs player otherwise this half hashed version of a test player will create more problems than solutions for himself and the country. 

Edited January 12, 2020 by mancalledsting

[putrevus]

He does not have the skills to be a test player.Those skills have to be developed coming up thru ranks.He is almost 27 and has played 29 FC matches out of which 11 are test matches. People keep talking about his 5fer, he got those five wickets in 6 overs, so it is more due to luck than his skill.Even Micheal Clarke has 6 fer it did not make him allrounder.

 

You need to put hard yards in to become a quality test player.India is better off with Jadeja as allrounder and play 4 fast bowlers.BCCI needs to improve incentives for FC players or else we will stop producing great test players..

[Straight Drive]

His fitness is a problem. Moreover test matches do test the fitness of players a lot. Doubt he will even play 40 test matches considering the time he is away from field due to injuries.

[Ankit_sharma03]

No point discussing about him as of now coz he isnt fit for Nz tour and after that test wud be played end of the year. By then we ll have to look at his fitness. He is very important to our LOI side so his fitness is the key. 

[vvvslaxman]

Bottomline is we should consider someone like Pandya "indispensable" in Tests as his future is very uncertain in that format. We just have to find another combination that works for us. Even if it means losing a batsman i am fine.  Ashwin/Jadeja = 1 full batsman. 

[Khota]

No he is not needed. He needs to improve his skill either in batting or  bowling but his athletic abilities are impressive.

[bowl_out]

He is critical to the LOI set up and seen as a far more valuable player in ODIs, T20s than in Tests.. We are better off playing an extra batsman or extra bowler in Tests, and saving Pandya's fitness and energy for the shorter formats

Edited January 12, 2020 by bowl_out

[vvvslaxman]

lol@Hardi panda

[The Realist]

Bits & pieces player at best in tests. He's only a year younger than the other failed experiment "all-rounder" Vijay Shankar.

[putrevus]

Ben Stokes will walk into England team based on his batting alone.He is their second best batsmen and most important player for his versatility. That kind of player is very rare, I don't think Pandya is anywhere near the class of Ben Stokes.Even in odis he has to improve his batting , he needs to evolve into a batting allrounder  who could avg in high 30s and bat at no6 replacing Jadhav.

[Ankit_sharma03]

On 1/12/2020 at 6:01 PM, mancalledsting said:

Has ability to achieve batting average > 40

To have a good batting avg a player needs test at home as well. He is only considered for overseas which are very tough condition for batsman. If most batsman will have to do that someone like pujara will avg around 35 . Only a few like dareen bravo, dravid, rahane have better avg away. With jadeja n ashwin its diff to give him home test and now we have seamers like shami, umesh, bumrah and a spinner like kuldeep so its very tough for pandya to get in for home test where jadeja , ashwin, pant are giving extra batting. 

[zen]

I wrote an article on this 

[R!TTER]

53 minutes ago, Ankit_sharma03 said:

To have a good batting avg a player needs test at home as well.

Who said that, where is it written? SRT, Dravid & SMG all avg better away, Mohinder Amarnath as well IIRC. Also you constantly gloss over the fact that new ball is always tougher in S.E.N.A. & the biggest difference in our overseas tours to SA, Eng was the lower middle order. Even a rookie Curran vastly outperformed HP with the bat, let alone his skills with the ball.

 

Simply put HP is not a test player material atm, whether it be with the bat or ball. Any excuses trying to make him better than he is atm are just that!

[zen]

1 hour ago, Ankit_sharma03 said:

To have a good batting avg a player needs test at home as well.

In Asia, Pandya avgs 60+ iirc 

[Ankit_sharma03]

7 hours ago, R!TTER said:

Who said that, where is it written? SRT, Dravid & SMG all avg better away, Mohinder Amarnath as well IIRC. Also you constantly gloss over the fact that new ball is always tougher in S.E.N.A. & the biggest difference in our overseas tours to SA, Eng was the lower middle order. Even a rookie Curran vastly outperformed HP with the bat, let alone his skills with the ball.

 

Simply put HP is not a test player material atm, whether it be with the bat or ball. Any excuses trying to make him better than he is atm are just that!

1st of all they were far superior then most in world

2nd only playing in tough condition wud help no one as when u score at home it also boost ur confidence

Diff was england lower order was playing at home....ppl kept quoting sam curran and the same sam curran when toured outside in WI, SA n SL now has worse avg then pandya. Again making my point how home n away is diff....curran was playing at home the minute he went outside his stats went to dogs. Hardik scored 100 in SL tour ...curran all together cud only manage 112 runs in SL

[RajBan]

Hardik should be part of the squad to give options but he has not achieved that state yet where he can walk in the Test 11 based on either his bowling or batting or both. Playing Hardik cureently is  based on giving yourself  that fifth bowler option , that too a fast bowling one but given his wasteful nature and lack of focus you are definitely weakening the batting when compared to a top batsman. He definitely has the potential but whether he will reach the level of Shakib or Stokes depends on whether he is ready to put his head down and work hard and grab his opportunity whenever it comes his way.

 

I agree with some posters, he should be more focussed on LOI for now.

[Straight Drive]

2 minutes ago, RajBan said:

Hardik should be part of the squad to give options but he has not achieved that state yet where he can walk in the Test 11 based on either his bowling or batting or both. Playing Hardik cureently is  based on giving yourself  that fifth bowler option , that too a fast bowling one but given his wasteful nature and lack of focus you are definitely weakening the batting when compared to a top batsman. He definitely has the potential but whether he will reach the level of Shakib or Stokes depends on whether he is ready to put his head down and work hard and grab his opportunity whenever it comes his way.

 

I agree with some posters, he should be more focussed on LOI for now.

More than ability test cricket will test his body more given that he gets injured frequently. Injuries are more threatening to career. Even after surgery followed by 2-3 months recovery period, he has not been seemed fit and has been pulled out from A tour. His body (more specificallg his back) is not coping with the speed and efforts he bowls at. Probably he will have to lower his pace to cope up with load his back can take. Cummins is recent  example that a 145+ kph bowler can bowl at same pace after  back surgery. So there is hope. Cummins body could take the workload. Will have to wait a see if Pandya can bowl at same speeds again post surgery.