India tour of Ireland (2 T20Is) & England (1 Test, 3 ODIs & 3 T20Is)

[NILAYSHAH60]

Pant & Hardik just nailed it!!

 

[Bigby Wolf]

Pant and Hardik could be our Dhoni and Yuvi of this generation.

They had a few decent partnership against Home ODI England Series as well last year.

 

[NILAYSHAH60]

Today's innings of Pant has to be his best innings in white ball Cricket. More so it looks as if he does well when he gives himself a little more time into his innings and has someone to support him from the other end. This has to be the best ever partnership for India in ODIs for a long time now, maybe the last decade!

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

Somewhere between 2010s, where
Indian Top Order and Spinners carried the team.

to 2020s, where
Indian Lower Order and Pacers are carrying the team.

.....we all grew up witnessing the transition

 

[LiveLoveABD]

Pant and Hardik could be our Dhoni and Yuvi of this generation.

They had a few decent partnership against Home ODI England Series as well last year.

There will never be another MSD.

 

[wasteyouryouth]

Oh, I almost forgot.

#ButtlerOut

 

[Bigby Wolf]

There will never be another MSD.

There will never be any identical person ever on this Earth again.

Be it MSD, ABD, SACHIN. etc. etc.

That was just a metaphor to the finishhing skills that these guys did today akin to Dhoni and Yuvi in the mid to late 2000s.

 

[Bevab]

Extremely good innings from Pant, shows that he can play the ‘stabiliser’ role if needed under pressure even if that is not the best way to utilise him. Looks more and more like he will be the number four going forward.

Sublime game from Hardik too both with the ball and the bat. Having an extra bowler in Jadeja seems to have really relieved the pressure on him and he’s put in tons of work to get back to where he was once. Keep him fit and keep him away from test cricket and the Indian white ball side will be all the better for it. Groom him for the leadership role going forward. He still needs to learn better in terms of what to say and how to deal with individuals but I have hope that he will get there.

 

[wasteyouryouth]

Extremely good innings from Pant, shows that he can play the ‘stabiliser’ role if needed under pressure even if that is not the best way to utilise him. Looks more and more like he will be the number four going forward.

Sublime game from Hardik too both with the ball and the bat. Having an extra bowler in Jadeja seems to have really relieved the pressure on him and he’s put in tons of work to get back to where he was once. Keep him fit and keep him away from test cricket and the Indian white ball side will be all the better for it. Groom him for the leadership role going forward. He still needs to learn better in terms of what to say and how to deal with individuals but I have hope that he will get there.

If they can get Hardik back in the test team it'd be a huge bonus.

 

[NILAYSHAH60]

If they can get Hardik back in the test team it'd be a huge bonus.

I would say it's tough for him. Nothing with the skill set but the workload that he gets, it would be difficult for him to get back into the Test side.

 

[Paranoid Kendroid]

I just came online to check the scorecards and... woah!

 

[wasteyouryouth]

I would say it's tough for him. Nothing with the skill set but the workload that he gets, it would be difficult for him to get back into the Test side.

I think there's potential for him to be used as a SENA only all rounder. However, having a top seven player who can bowl pace would also be tempting in Asian conditions. He's a great player. He's looked much improved, all round, since the IPL, but managing his fitness is crucial.

 

[Velocity]

Fantastic hundred by Pant. Finally he's played a matchwinning innings in white ball cricket akin to the nature of one of his red-ball hundreds. Think he's becoming a lot more mindful of his "rush of blood" moments, they showed a replay of him supposedly calming himself down after hitting a four and six through his gestures. Which is all good signs for the Indian team going forward. If he keeps maturing and is consistent, I don't see why he can't be the #4 for next year's OD WC. Still think SKY should've been established at #4 a few series back with Pant/Rahul at 5, but looks like the management is keen at Pant being the #4.

Hardik has been in some great form ever since the start of the IPL this year. Looks like captaincy really improved his game and pushed him to become better. Been in the best form with the ball that he's ever been, and his batting has improved to a point where he is capable of batting at even #4/#5 in limited overs. I don't believe there is any need to rush him back into the red ball scene, he came back after a long lay off and it's not like India desperately lack a seam bowling allrounder in all formats (Shardul Thakur being one of them). Would be ideal to preserve him for the T20 WC and the ODI WC next year going forward.

And also don't think it's a big requirement to have a seam-bowling allrounder in Asian conditions like the other teams have (C Green for Aus and Faheem Ashraf for Pak). India have the luxury of playing two quality spin bowling allrounders in Jaddu and Ashwin.

 

[Bevab]

If they can get Hardik back in the test team it'd be a huge bonus.

I believe he is far too valuable for our white ball side to be risked in the test team. There’s been plenty of talk about how vital a pace bowling all-rounder would be such a boon in SENA conditions but given that we’ve got a world class all-rounder in Jadeja who can bat in the top seven and be the primary spinner we can still go with four pacers.

His utility in Asian conditions is also dubious, we’ve already got three world class spinners for every minefield we might encounter and all of them can bat at number seven if needed. I don’t see us struggling to bowl out other sides with them to necessitate a fourth spin option and I don’t see us needing him as an option to wear out the new ball as we would always have two seamers in the playing XI. Our seamers have also been equally good if not better than spinners at home recently.

I did say the same thing about Bumrah a few years ago when we debuted him as being too indispensable to the white ball side and since then we’ve developed a decent crop of white ball specialist pacers. However there’s quite simply no one who offers what Hardik does in domestic cricket at the moment. The closest I can think of is Raj Bawa and I think it will take a very long time for him to reach there given the teams that he is in at the moment.

The developmental cost of an all-rounder is also quite high given that the mature later usually as they focus on two disciplines at the same time which means a longer time to master both. Hardik himself was a victim of this as he became a non-factor for a while with the bat in the years before the World Cup due to him being forced into the fifth bowler role. By his own admission he never practiced batting in the nets and the only practice he ever got in those times were in actual matches. There was the time where he was one of the highest wicket takers in the IPL as a result of this. Later on partly due to his faltering form with the bat and largely due to his fitness issues he had to slowly abandon bowling and turn into a specialist finisher which forced him to focus a lot more on batting. It looks like his rehabilitation has given him the opportunity to focus on his bowling again whilst also letting him fine tune his batting especially with regards to building an innings.

Quite simply put though, it took a very special set of circumstances that has brought Hardik the all-rounder today as he is. To risk it all just for the sake of a few tests would be folly with no proper backup.

 

[LiveLoveABD]

For me, and I say this with some level of disdain, all this talk of temperament from Pandya is absolute bull! The fact that he was meant for the big stage and has a good head on his shoulders to me has been known a long time. You don't just do what he did even before GT existed without the head he has.

The biggest positive for me is his technical shift and the fact that he realises he doesn't need to bat on his off stump to make an impact or make runs. His set up is now extremely compact and he is now realising that his core is so strong that he can just play cricket shots till it's time to tee off. THAT for me has been the biggest improvement and I dearly hope his body stays intact. As @Bevab said, we need him badly in white ball cricket. Our red ball attack is sufficient, specially with Jadeja at 7. Our red ball game is not a dominant force because of our batting.