Lucknow: It was during the regime of Greg Chappell as coach of Indian cricket team when Irfan Pathan was being groomed as a potent allrounder for which he definitely lacked the tenacity and to an extent the required talent. Result is his premature end even as the bowler.
There are instances when the free-flowing stroke players were given unfitting responsibilities too early in their career and too much in volume and they found themselves in no man's land. Imagine, what would have happened had Virender Sehwag was told to curb his instincts and bill innings. Same, perhaps, is happening to Hardik Pandya. The 4th One Day International against Australia which India lost at Bengaluru was yet another case of unnecessary experimentation by trying to groom one at the cost of others.
In a chase of 333 runs in 50 overs, the Indian team management sent Pandya at number 4 again ahead of Manish Pandey and Kedar Jadhav. The new kid on the block may have scored 40 off 41 but this was expecting too much from him. He was sent in 23rd over with rather hazy approach. If he was sent to consolidate the innings, then Manish and Kedar would have been right choices and if he was to be used as the pinch hitter then it was not the appropriate time and if it was then, he looked 'inordinately' sincere and responsible, not accentuated to his natural traits.
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The perfect team man Rahul Dravid had once said that any player should be prepared to play at any given position according to the need. But was this the needy situation. By over-grooming ' Pandya, the Shastri-Virat think tank is not doing any good to likes of Manish Pandey and Kedar Jadhav, if they are in the scheme of things for 2019 World Cup. Both the players (if not others) are bound to erode their confidence if denied responsibility in such cruch situation.
Even by the standards of Hardik, this was not the innings which could justify the pace of an arduous task of chasing 333 runs which , of course , was an achievable task. In fact, the Team management does impinge upon developing Hardik into a tool to counter-attack any formidable attack but the experiments have to stop some where.
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In the 4th ODI, the situation was tailor-made for Manish, Kedar and even Dhoni to take their sweet time to dig-in and launch the offensive later. By doing so, the management is also not doing a word of good for Hardik who is such a natural hitter which India missed for years, especially in the lower middle order.
Let us preserve him and at the same time do not let others lose their confidence if we have to make an unassailable combination in the times to come.