GT need Hardik Pandya's six-hitting now more than ever 

In the current cricketing landscape, not many players elicit as many contrasting opinions as Gujarat Titans (GT) captain Hardik Pandya. Whenever he does not bowl, there are furrowed brows from the cricket-watching folk in India – some inquisitory, some with concern around his well-being.

These days, the discussion is around the way he is batting, and whether it is what he should be doing – both as the Gujarat Titans’ captain and possibly, as India’s next full-time T20 skipper.

On the field, he has led GT with distinction, make no mistake about it. As things stand, just one game away from their second successive final appearance. But because Hardik can be so impactful with the bat, there is just that feeling that there is still more to come.

Since being installed as GT skipper, Hardik has been content to play an anchor role. Last season, he scored 487 runs and was a solid presence in their middle order. Those runs, however, came at a strike rate of 131.27. It did not affect GT adversely, for David Miller, Rahul Tewatia and Rashid Khan were finishing games for fun.

This season, with the addition of the Impact Player, and with teams being more gung-ho than ever, GT have become slightly over-reliant on Shubman Gill. With Hardik not firing on all cylinders either, it has, at times, meant that they have left runs out there – something they simply have to avoid against a team as power-packed as the Mumbai Indians.

Hardik Pandya has not been in great form for GT in IPL 2023

Hardik, for context, has only scored 297 runs this season at a strike rate of 130.26 – a sharp decline from his career IPL strike rate of 145.06.

In fact, his strike rate in IPL 2023 is his second-lowest ever (minimum 100 balls faced). His six-tally, which stands at 11 is also his joint-second lowest in all seasons where he has faced at least 100 balls.

There could be two explanations. One could be that Hardik wants to take more responsibility and that he wants to absorb the pressure, allowing those around him the freedom to be more cavalier.

The other could be that he has lost his six-hitting touch, and that he is just unable to be as belligerent as he once was, especially when he was single-handedly winning games of cricket for MI.

Considering Hardik looked in relatively good form at the T20 World Cup last year, scoring a brisk half-century against England in the semi-final, the latter might not be true. Maybe then, he is trying to rein in his natural instincts and is trying to become the anchor that everyone bats around.

The only issue, though, is that GT, at this point, may not need his anchoring tendencies that much. Not just because he has not been very consistent at it, but also because his six-hitting ability is definitely more valuable at this stage.

Part of that is down to how well Vijay Shankar has batted this season. The right-handed batter has looked as good as he has ever done in an IPL campaign, and has timed the ball beautifully. Shankar is also a more natural anchor, for he likes taking time at the start of his innings before opening up his shoulders.

The other and more pertinent reason why Hardik needs to find his six-hitting groove is that neither Miller or Tewatia have had extraordinary seasons. There have been glimpses but even the pair would admit that 2022 was better for them than 2023.

So, with another anchor doing what Hardik is attempting, and their finishers not really setting the world as alight as they did last campaign, it makes plenty of sense for the GT skipper to revert to what allowed him to burst onto the scene – and that is hit boundaries and clear the ropes as often as possible.

When that happens, his team usually wins. Since making his debut in 2015, Hardik has hit 20 or more sixes in a season thrice. MI won on each of those occasions (2017, 2019 and 2020).

If the rest of the games at Ahmedabad can be used as a marker, the pitch for Qualifier 2 will aid stroke-making. GT, in that case, will need a decent enough cushion to account for MI’s exceptional ball-strikers, and they cannot just depend on Gill to do all the heavy lifting.

The GT captain has a habit of defying odds, and standing up just when everyone has written him off. It has not yet reached that stage but there can be no denying that the murmurs around him not being as free-flowing as he can be, are only getting louder.

That he has a chance to silence all those doubters, by revisiting a role that made him famous, against the team that benefited and prospered so much because of his attacking instincts – only makes this entire narrative even more dramatic, and almost makes this too good an opportunity pass up.

The questions and the polarizing of opinions around Hardik will, of course, not stop. But if Pandya becomes the six-hitting machine he once was at MI, it will force people to look elsewhere for different faults.