5 things to know about Krunal Pandya of Mumbai Indians

Elder brother of Mumbai Indians and Team India allrounder Hardik Pandya, Krunal Pandya has taken the cricketing sphere by surprise by picking up a whopping INR 2 crore deal with his brother’s IPL franchise. The 24-year old also plays List A and T20 cricket alongside Hardik for their home side Baroda. Until yesterday, Krunal was unknown even to Indian cricket circles, let alone the whole world. His emergence has been quite similar to his brother, who shot to fame through his exploits for the Mumbai Indians and now finds himself as a member of India’s T20 team.Time will tell whether the elder Pandya lives up to his price tag, but for now he is one of the most talked about picks in the IPL auction. Here are 5 things that you should know about young Krunal:

#1 An allrounder like his brother, but of a different variety

The Pandya brothers seem to share a great equation

Krunal Pandya also plays the role of an allrounder for Baroda. However, unlike Hardik, he is a left-handed batsman and a slow left-arm orthodox spinner who has played just 15 T20s and 4 List A matches so far.

24-year old Krunal has a pretty decent allround record in his T20 career so far with 167 runs at a brisk strike rate of 138.01 and 16 wickets at an average of 16.18. He has an impressive economy rate of under 6 and has best figures of 3 for 25.

A notable fact about him is that Krunal Pandya is yet to make his First-class debut.

#2 His last competitive match was in March last year

Senior Pandya has amazed everyone at the IPL auction

Krunal Pandya may have picked up a lucrative deal with the Mumbai Indians, however, he has been out of action for almost a year now. The elder of the Pandya brothers made his last appearance in a T20 match against Saurashtra at the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy.

If you are wondering why, it was because of a labral tear in his shoulder which required him to undergo surgery. This fact makes it all the more surprising that the defending champions agreed to shell out INR 2 crore to acquire the services of young Baroda allrounder.

#3 His career started off after his younger brother

Krunal Pandya had mostly been under Hardik’s shadow until the auction happened

Even though Krunal Pandya is a couple of years older than brother Hardik, his debut T20 match came against Bengal on 26 March 2013, 9 days after the latter made his first T20 appearance against Mumbai. An interesting thing is that both brothers had a modest outing in their respective debut games.

However, Krunal and Hardik kickstarted their List A careers in the same match against Gujarat on 8 November 2014. The younger Pandya was quick to make an impact with a quick 68, however, Krunal Pandya had a none too memorable beginning.

Pandya Senior only played 3 more List A matches post that, the last one coming on 12 November 2014.

#4 He fetched 20 times more money than his brother

Can Hardik Pandya’s brother soar like he has?

At the 2015 IPL auction, Hardik Pandya had made it to the Mumbai Indians side when they picked him up for his base price of INR 10 lakh. Pandya was relatively unknown at that point, however, he went on to achieve success with MI and made it to Team India.

While the unknown factor applies to Krunal Pandya as well, he managed to grab a contract worth 20 times more than his brother going for INR 2 crore to the same team. It will be interesting to see whether he can surpass Hardik in terms of performance as well.

#5 He and his brother hail from a modest background

The two brothers have already made it a long way from their days of managing to survive on Maggi packets

Krunal Pandya and his brother Hardik come from a very modest background. Their father, Himanshu Pandya, moved to Baroda in 1999 where he was into a small-scale car financing business which did not fetch him much money.

However, he was convinced with the cricketing skills of his sons so he made it a point to get them enrolled in Kiran More’s academy despite the hardships. In a recent interview to a newspaper, Hardik had revealed how he and Krunal used to survive the entire day at the ground on a bowl of Maggi.

The younger Pandya has come a long way from there to become a highly sought after cricketer and Krunal too has made a start.